If looks could kill, Giu would be guilty of manslaughter with the way he stares down the fool who sucker-punched Fliss. "I'm telling you, you don't want me getting off my chair, mate. Now, piss off, before I change my mind."
The fool most likely won't hear a word of what Giu just said, but perhaps the words might just manage to inspire his companions. For good measure, he also stares down the idiot who threw a tankard at Shaumatiel.
Shaumatiel and Dar land a few hits, but fail to take their respective opponents out of the fight. Dar's opponent hits the half-elf twice, landing solid blows each time. Shaumatiel's foe is obviously intimidated by Giuseffe's words and demeanour and fails to strike her. Fliss's opponent kicks at her from the floor, but doesn't manage to connect.
A thrown mug comes flying out of the melee to hit Giuseffe; more by luck than anything else, it hits him square on the nose, causing eye-watering pain.
Shamautiel continues to angrily lash her assailant.
Slightly staggered by the blows against him, Dar ignores the blood running out of his nose and grabs the man by the arm to rain punches down on him.
Giu groans as if hit by a meter of vodka shots. The world spins and turns, but one thing in particular doesn't go out of focus: the bastard who threw the tankard at him. Or, well, he thinks that's the guy.
Dar and Shaumatiel manage to drop their opponents to the floor, just as Delma returns with the town sheriff, a man in his late 20s who seems more interested in his neatly-groomed beard than he does in keeping law and order. Nevertheless, at his appearance the fight dissipates and he takes the farmer who started the whole thing to one side, for a stern talk, before taking his leave once again.
Once the brawl has subsided, Bort's good humour (never far from the surface) reappears. "Well then, that's all over, come and have pudding - and another round of drinks! You don't want to miss out on this turnip porridge, do you? I have to say, of all the foods I've encountered on my travels, this turnip porridge here is my favourite." (That probably explains the extra-large bowl he has in front of him.)
The dwarf readily resumes the tale he was telling before the fight broke out: "So there I and my companions were, captured by Fire Giants! Luckily, though I say it myself, I think fast on my feet: even as I was being lowered into the kettle, I managed to persuade the cook - a vast giant with a bright-red beard that fell down to his ankles, that's no word of a lie - that dwarf-meat isn't digestible unless you cook us with a rare plant called "frostbloom" which I happened to have on me. So, when he tasted the broth before putting us into it, it froze his mouth shut and we were able to esc-"
He starts to cough and choke slightly. "Huh. Just a bit of indigestion, that giant chef's revenge from afar, no - no doubt..."
The coughing becomes more serious, and his eyes start to bulge. A few moments later it is clear that Bort is in genuine distress. He begins to turn purple and his mouth begins frothing. Seconds after, his eyes roll into his head and a rumble can be heard in his guts.
Suddenly, he slumps in his chair and falls to the floor. He does not get up.
Shaumatiel is only half-listening to Bort's tale, more concerned with the stain on her dress. She snaps to attention when the dwarf chokes and collapses. "Poison! Trickery is afoot!"
She moves to his side, seeing if there is anything she can do to aid him, or, if it is too late, at least determine more about his death.
"Careful, crazy lady!" Fliss rushes to help/criticise. "I know nothing about healing, but even I know that kneeling on his chest isn't going to help. Maybe, like, save that sort of thing for in private?"
She tries to work out what the problem is, going into lifesaving mode as she works on getting the dwarf breathing again. "C'mon, Bort, you gotta finish the story, c'mon!"
Dar stands and steps back from the afflicted dwarf. His eyes search the rest of the room looking for anyone displaying suspicious behavior.
Fliss is able to determine that Bort is not choking on anything: his windpipe is swollen shut. Despite her best efforts to revive him, whatever poison he ingested is too powerful, even for his dwarven constitution.
In a matter of moments, he is dead.
The crowd that was starting to gather falls silent - as does the rest of the tavern - and everyone begins eyeing one another (and their food).
Delma is so pale her skin is almost white, but she keeps her composure. "I - I'd better go and fetch the sheriff again." She bites her lip, and looks at the corpse. "Gods. Nothing like this has ever happened here."
Giu whispers in a tone of disbelief. Did Bort really just die thanks to some sort of food allergy in the worst town possibly imaginable? But something doesn't up. Unless, of course, his body grew a will of its own and decided that no more turnip would desecrate its hallowed intestines and organs. "Asmodeus' burning balls, what the hell happened to him?!"
To ease his nerves, the bard rubs his own temples. "Is there anything we can do?"
"Yes. We can find out who did this to him and exact vengeance," Shaumatiel says with cold fury. She clasps her holy symbol of Calistria, silently vowing an oath of revenge to the Savored Sting.
To ease his nerves, the bard rubs his own temples. "Is there anything we can do?"
His eyes still searching the room, Dar pats Giuseffe's shoulder. "I'd recommend avoiding the turnip pudding."
Not knowing how his skill with a sword can help, the half-elf decides to take action of a different sort. He makes his way to the kitchen to see if anyone is still there. He also keeps his extremely untrained eye out for anything that seems suspicious.
Fliss looks grim. "Definitely poison. He didn't choke - something made his throat swell shut so he couldn't breathe."
She looks around, trying to gauge the room much as Dar did.
Fliss doesn't spot anything suspicious, but she does spot Delma returning to the tavern with the sheriff just behind her, in time to stop Dar from leaving the scene of the crime - an act that would no doubt be looked on with suspicion.
It becomes clear very quickly that Sheriff Garley is way, way out of his depth: he turns pale when he sees the body, and hastily orders it to be covered with the nearest cloth. He then takes everyone in the taproom out to the stables, and talks to them individually to ask them what happened. (Possibly just out of a hope that one of them will confess to the crime and this whole thing can be over with.)
As the ones nearest to Bort when it happened, you are interviewed first, although the fact that you didn't really know him that well and (more importantly) had nothing to gain from his death, as well as the fact that you rushed to help him as soon as it became clear he was in trouble.
The other members of the caravan are then called forward, but only Olf and Ulf were in the taproom at the time, and they were gambling at cards with one of the farmers. Tamli the half-orc, her face lined with grief, confirms that she would be the inheritor of the caravan in Bort's absence, but she was nowhere near the tavern.
The next person to be interviewed is the cook (and purveyor of out-of-tune singing), Amora. Proud of her work, she stands her ground and stubbornly insists that it wasn't her food: food poisoning doesn't work that fast, so it must be poison. And she would never poison the food she makes. The sheriff looks inclined to agree with her, but insists that nothing in the kitchen be cleaned or moved so that he can investigate more closely. Amora removes her apron in a fury, throwing it to the ground and storming out of the room.
Growing increasingly frustrated, the sheriff turns to Delma: "Is this everyone who was in the room at the time?"
The tavernkeeper frowns. "Hang on. Yes. No, wait - two of my staff aren't here. Trin was hit by a flagon during the brawl, and I sent her home. Phinick..." she frowns. "Phinick was here earlier, but I can't see him. Still, he'll turn up. This sort of thing distresses him, I think. Oh, and Sir Lawren, of course. He left when the fight started."
Sheriff Garley nods, understandingly. "Oh, of course. Of course."
He then turns to you. "Well, it looks like I can't solve this one immediately. There is no clear suspect, but no member of the caravan - that's you lot - can be ruled out. I will need to turn this investigation over to a circuit judge who visits the town occasionally to deal with serious legal matters and crimes." He sighs. "Unfortunately, the judge, Lord Mubbage Cranberry, is not due back for another month, so I'm going to have to tell you not to leave town until then."
Every member of the caravan looks appalled at the prospect of staying here in the boondocks for that long. Tamli balls her fists, and scowls, the lines of grief turning rapidly to anger. "Now, look here, lawman..."
"Excuse me, Sheriff," Dar says, speaking up. "But it would seem to a rational mind that if you're forcing us to stay here against our will then it would behoove you to at least provide us with room and board for the stay? Unpoisoned food, preferably."
Fliss doesn't look very happy at the sheriff's pronouncement, at least partly because (as a paladin of Abadar) she's bound to follow and respect lawful authority. She has a feeling this is going to put her at odds with the others, but there's nothing she can do about it.
Making sure that her silver holy symbol is properly visible, she steps forward and around the fuming half-orc, before Tamli does something unfortunate. "Hey, sheriff. I totally get that you don't want us running away before, like, the big reveal of who did this thing. But maybe we could help find who did it? Like, if that's all solved then we won't have to wait for the judge to come by, right? So, maybe you could deputise us to work on this case?"
"I think that's an excellent idea," Shaumatiel says, moving up beside Fliss. "And when we find the culprit, we will ensure that they receive the punishment that they deserve."
Chained by death to a place that's not worth living in. Oh, Giu just cannot believe his luck! This feeling of bliss translates into a pout and Giu happily shows it to the world around him. It's as the Chelish halflings say: shared sorrow is half sorrow.
"I'm sure Delma would appreciate it if you didn't turn her establishment into a holding cell for those mourning the death of their companion."
The sheriff waves off Dar and Giuseffe's concerns. "Where you stay isn't my problem. If you leave, that will be your problem."
He looks a little dubious at first as Fliss starts jabbering at him, but he eventually nods, possibly swayed as much by the idea of having some help solving this mystery as much as her Abadaran symbol. "Hmm. Deputies. Yes, I guess that could work. Just, you know, report to me regular and don't cause any trouble."
Once Bort's corpse is stowed in the cellar (the coolest place it can be in a town that doesn't have a mortuary or a jail), he touches his cap respectfully to Delma and to Tamli: "Sorry for your loss, all." He then takes his leave.
The half-orc scowls as she watches him go. "Good riddance. Right, come on everyone - we're going to do this properly." Without waiting for a reply, she leads all the members of the caravan out to where the wagons are parked. Tamli clears her throat, uncertainly. "Right, then. Tomorrow is full of uncertainty and doubt, but tonight is about remembering the past. So. I first met Bort when..." she tells a tale of her years travelling with the caravan, and then the others contribute their stories. Tales of remembrance are told through teary eyes, and rare bottles of elven wine from Kyonin are passed around for all to share.
Tamli is more than happy to keep quiet after her initial speech, but at the end of the night, just as the sun is about to rise, she speaks once again. "Bort was more than just a merchant, more than just the boss. He was my friend. We won’t leave here until we’ve found out who did this. That sheriff's a fool, but I’d be an even greater fool if I thought I could get to the bottom of this. Fixing wagons and moving goods, that’s my job. But you,” she says, pointing at all of you, “you might be able to figure out who killed Bort and get justice for him.” She holds back tears as she says, “For all of us. Will you help uncover who did this?”
There's a general murmur of agreement.
Shaumatiel partakes copiously of the elven wine, getting a pretty good buzz going in short order. She lays a comforting hand on Tamli's shoulder. "Don't worry, love. We will get to the bottom of more than just this bottle."
After sleeping off the night's activities, the cleric heads out into the town to try canvass the area around the inn. She wants to know if anybody saw anything suspicious last night, or if anybody might have borne a grudge against Bort and wanted him dead.
Giu waves away the wine at first but makes up for it when round two comes by. Death in a literary sense does not bother him, but the physical manifestation of the end of life touches him more than he'd like to admit. "But first, let us finish this bottle to celebrate life, to comradery, and to right a terrible wrong. It will not bring back Bort, but it is now up to us, to each one present right here, to carry a part of Bort along with us until we meet again in Pharasma's waiting room. Let's make sure that when we do, we can tell him we got the bastard."
With that said, Giu can't help but feel like wrapping his lips around a cigarette. Gods, I need a smoke. No wonder I'm getting all sentimental and emotional - how is one to keep his cool without a cig in his hand?
"Don't know if I'll be any good at discovering who was responsible, but I'll be happy to help with any kind of punishment we come up with after the fact," Dar says with a nod.
The next day, the swordsman will accompany Shaumatiel as she makes her rounds.
Wandering around town randomly asking questions doesn't get you very far, and eventually you end back in the taproom of the Feedmill. Delma serves you a drink (the kitchen is still closed) and listens to your questions: "Like I said last night, I really didn't see anything. Your best option is probably to ask the rest of my staff: Kolnral, Trin and Phinick were serving, and Amora was cooking. They might have seen something. Edra is the stablehand, so she probably didn't see much, but you can talk to her if you like."
Shaumatiel nods. "Very well. The cook seems most likely to know something. Let's speak to Amora." She heads into the kitchen to look for the cook.
The kitchen contains the cooking utensils needed to operate the Feedmill—kettles, skillets, knives, a mortar and pestle, roasting spits, a sieve, and a butter churner. Of particular note is the kettle of turnip porridge sitting on the counter, next to Bort’s large bowl.
Although the remnants are starting to dry out, you notice an unusual, faintly floral, smell in the porridge remaining in Bort’s bowl. The smell doesn't appear to be a match for any of the herbs in the kitchen, or of the spices sitting in the mortar and pestle.
What you don't find in the kitchen is the cook: Amora hasn't yet come in and - given the kitchen is closed for the time being - it doesn't seem she is likely to.
According to Delma, Amora lives just outside town in what was once the apple orchard.
Shaumatiel sniffs the kettle and wrinkles her nose. "Hmm. There's definitely an extra ingredient that doesn't belong in there. Shall we pay a visit to the old orchard?"
"Why not?" Dar answers. "I love apples."
"Hang on." Before they leave for the orchard, Fliss takes a few minutes to scout around the rest of the inn just in case there's anything to be found.
Giu puts Bort's bowl to the side and looks around for a piece of cloth, like say a dishcloth, he can wrap around it. "We might want to make sure this doesn't disappear for now."
The extra ingredient is only present in Bort's bowl. Fliss' search of the premises turns up one important clue: in the yard outside the barn, she spots a glint in the grass just outside the stable doors, leading to a small glass vial with a simple cork.
The vial is empty but contains traces of a floral-smelling liquid - the same scent that was in Bort's bowl.
Moving away from the inn, it is perhaps a ten-minute walk to the Old Orchard, an area just outside town that was once a productive apple orchard. These days, it is foul and rotten, the trees having taken on a sickness.
A figure swaddled in heavy padding and a protective veil is harvesting honey from a monstrously large beehive that swells out from the hollowed remains of one of the rotten trees. Busy with their activity, and wreathed in smoke from a smoke can, they haven't noticed you.
Keeping his hand away from his weapon, Dar calls out good-naturedly, "Careful, I hear those things have a nasty sting."
”But a bee can only sting you once before dying. A wasp can sting you again and again,” Shaumatiel says with a slight edge to her voice. She eyes the figure warily, hand hovering near her coiled whip.
Dar turns his gaze to Shaumatiel and his expression can only be read as, 'Really?! That's what you're going to add?'
Shaumatiel returns Dar’s look with a glare and turns back to the figure. ”We seek the Feedmill’s cook. We have questions for her regarding last night’s deadly dinner.”
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"Thank you for the apicultural lesson," Giu hisses as he imagines a thousand different ways for how what's next can go wrong. As Shaumatiel moves forward to converse, the dreadful surmise that his epitaph might read 'always wanted to bee someone' clings to his mind like a wet piece of sanitary paper.
"Bees make honey, which you can eat or trade. Last I checked, wasps don't, like, do anything commercially useful." Fliss says this as though it ends all possible arguments on the subject.
Dar closes his eyes as if in pain as he waits for the inevitable (in his mind) verbal conflict.
Shaumatiel gives Fliss the side-eye but decides not to engage in a verbal duel. For now.
When the expected altercation doesn't manifest, Dar cautiously opens one eye and then the other.
He gives the elf a smile an appreciative smile before returning his attention to the beekeeper.
After a pause that feels like several days - possibly as long as a week - but is in reality no more than a few seconds, the figure turns to face you. Through the veil around her face, you see the face of a middle-aged woman with dark hair, flecked with streaks of grey.
"You seek the Feedmill's cook? That is fortunate, for I am she. Give me a few moments."
True to her word, it is a minute or so later before she steps away from the beehive towards you all, pulling the veil off her face. "I am Amora. And I see that you are acquaintances of that dwarf who so unfortunately died. Please do join me for tea. There is honey."
”Tea sounds lovely. We can talk while we drink.”
Dar will join the woman for tea, but will leave his untouched, the fact that they're looking for a poisoner foremost in his mind.
Amora lives alone, in a small but neat cottage. She invites you into the main room, which as several soft chairs which have definitely seen better days (the once-bright fabrics are dusty and faded) but are still comfortable. Once you are settled, she bustles through into the kitchen and returns some moments later with a pot of nettle tea, some reasonably fresh scones and a pot of extremely fresh honey.
Setting the tray down in the middle of the room, she drops herself onto one of the chairs. "Do help yourselves. So, I can guess what you want to talk about - why doesn't one of you do the difficult work of broaching the subject?"
After taking a bite of a delicious honey-dipped scone, Shaumatiel inclines her head. "Alright, I'll bite. You've made it clear that you're aware the caravan master Bort died last night. We've reason to suspect somebody poisoned his porridge. We found this vial outside the doors to the stable. Whatever was inside of it, we detected the same smell coming from Bort's bowl. Might you know anything about it?"
Amora rolls her eyes. "Oh, that blasted dwarf, of all the places he could get poisoned, why did he have to do it in my kitchen?" She looks pointedly at Dar, who hasn't touched his tea. "We're all drinking from the same pot, you know."
She turns back to Shaumatiel. "No, I made the porridge same as always. Don't know anything about why Bort's would smell any different. When it came time for the dessert, I prepared it, Phinick plated it and Trin served it. If anyone poisoned his dish in particular, it couldn't have been me. And I'm sure it wasn't either of those two, either. I've no special love for goblins, but Phinick's been at the Feedmill for years now and there's been no trouble."
Fliss makes a point of drinking Dar's tea by way of apology. "Thanks for talking to us. Hopefully when we find who did this then your reputation will be, like, restored good as new."
"Did you happen to see anybody unusual at the inn last night? Somebody unfamiliar or who shouldn't have been there?"
The middle-aged woman smiles at Fliss: "Why, thank you dear. It's nice to meet someone understanding. Why don't you take a jar of honey back with you?"
She carefully thinks about Shaumatiel's question, before shaking her head. "I was in the kitchen most of the evening, but from what I heard from Trin and Kolnral, it sounded like the usual people were there - plus you lot, of course." She scowls. "I gather that impertinent scoundrel Hallod was drinking there - if anyone's a poisoner, it would be him - but he left well before we started cooking dinner. If he'd tried to come into my kitchen I'd have given him a piece of my mind, and no mistake."
(From her description, this Hallod is the man who was drinking in the tavern when you arrived and who left shortly afterwards)
Dar doesn't respond to the woman's needling regarding the drinking of tea, but almost says something when Fliss takes his.
"So it sounds like you're saying that no one could have poisoned the man's food. Unfortunately that flies in the face of the facts at hand. Someone did it. Whether you think any of these people would have done it is irrelevant. One of them did do it or he'd still be alive." Dar crosses his arms. "I'm not convinced of anyone's innocence yet, other than my own."