"Does he have any loved ones we need to notify?" he asks evenly.
By this time Tamli has made her way over. Her face pales as she takes in the scene in front of her. Comprehension dawning slowly.
"He had no family but the Caravan crew."
The man by Delma finally speaks. "I'm the sheriff in these parts. The goblin there is right. We need to keep the bowl aside, to ensure no one else is poisoned. Right now, his body needs to go somewhere cool while Tamli here and the crew decide how best to proceed. Everyone will need some time."
"I can see you all tried to help, and for that, I thank you. I would ask, could you come to my house in the morning? I have some questions for you that will be best answered after we have all slept."
Delma nods. "I have a cellar I can move the body to, with a cold slab." She turns to the rest of the room. "Time's up folks. Inns closed. Please make your way out, and home!" Then she sinks down at the table and rests her head in her hands.
Calvus tries not to flinch at the reactions of the others. Whatever led them to today's path included pain and sorrow he can only guess at.
"Yes, of course," he says to the sherrif. "Do you need help moving Bort, Tamli?,"
Oosa jumps to his feet. "We meet tomorrow," he says nodding up and down. He then looks about, "Who made food and who brought out? Any one see?"
Laurel volunteers to help the sheriff drag the body. He closes his eyes while he does so, not wanting to look, and if he gets a whiff here and there, yells "Blech"...
"I think the path to knowing who killed bort stars with knowing why one would want to kill him," says Calvus.
"...is there anything I can do to help?"
"Yes, of course," he says to the sherrif. "Do you need help moving Bort, Tamli?,"
"Yes, thank you." It's not hard to get the body out of the way and respectfully placed. With a few people, it goes easily. The sheriff leaves immediately after.
By now the Inn is empty. Delma returns to the main room with a bottle of pale liquid.
"I suggest we each have one of these and then retire to bed. Today has been, exhausting." She pours everyone a drink, and takes a gulp.
"I noticed how you helped, both during the fight, and again with Bort. You did well. I can only thank you."
Wax takes the offered drink, downs it, and asks if he can have another.
After his second drink he says, "Maybe it's time I settled somewhere..." and then heads off to bed.
Laurel's eyebrows raise high at the sight of the drink poured out for him. He casts a look over at Marin to see if she is watching. She isn't...
...After a sip, his face shrivels in disgust. He pushes the mug to the center of the table. Blech.
...
After a beat, he and his ma retire...
The boy's dreams are filled with talking wolves and biting farmers, until a man comes in and breaks up all the fun, saying he is displeased with the music Laurel was playing - he can play the fiddle perfectly in the dream, despite having never touched one(!) - and he apologizes to him and says he'll do better, when suddenly a goblin grabs Laurel's cup, and runs off into the kitchen with Laurel chasing him, and when he finally catches up to him, the goblin gives him a turnip, which he immediately presents to Esha, who plants it in the ground, and it grows into a great tree, and they climb the tree together, and discover Oosa at the top, already laughing, when suddenly Calvus yells at them from the bottom to "stop playing and come down", so they listen, and come down, and Tezadwax tells a joke about Laurel, hurting his feelings, and everyone laughs at him...
...Laurel wakes up is a cold sweat, and looks around. Seeing all is well and safe, he easily slips back into light slumber until the morning, without further event...
|
Stop being paranoid! No one else seems worried about this. A life lived in fear is no life at all!
She looks at the shot glass warily and then quickly swallows the drink, as if that will help her escape any possible effects of poison. She then goes upstairs, carrying her armor and axe, and pulls out her journal to jot some notes from memory.
Tamli disappeared for a long time - back just before Bort poisoned.
Kolnral stumbled into someone and started fight - pre-planned?
Delma leaves and gets sheriff while everyone fighting
No one but us tries to help Bort.
She closes the journal and looks at it sadly, her little shoulders drooping. She sighs deeply, then slides off the chair, climbs onto bed and falls into a troubled sleep.
Oosa twiddles his little thumbs. He then scratches at the wood with his nail while his little brain went a million miles an hour. He continued to scratch like that until he passed out from sheer tireness. Not even when his oversized head lolled to the side and he fell to the floor did he wake up.
Morning comes dull and grey. A light drizzle permeating everything and making your rooms feel slightly damp.
Breakfast is warmer, there's a fire in the bar. But it's a rather boring affair of toast with jam and coffee.
Before long you find yourselves following Delma's directions to a house on the outskirts of the village. The door opens a whole minute or so after you knock, and it's obvious that the man who opens it, the sheriff from last night, hasn't slept a lot. His brown, beginning to grey hair is tousled, and his beard (which leaves his chin bare) is unkempt.
"Come in, come in." He shows you through his house to the kitchen, and a large oak table, laid out with a chair and a bench.
"Howdy, Shairf! We'd be here on 'fishel bizniss, seein' as ar frend Bort - Desna ress his soul - up and got poisoned lass night while we was all dancin' an eatin'. Mighty 'spishuss f'ya ask me. I'd be Laurel, and these here we be a posse of adventurers!"
Laurel bows deeply to convey his respect.
"Whooa calm down. There's no need for all that."
"I'm Rolth Garley we didn't get introduced last night. I'm all that passes for the law around here, and just the punch up last night was more excitement than we normally see in a season."
"Now it was obvious to me from the way you reacted, and looked after Bort that you are about the only people I can rule out as suspects. As it is, you are probably the most skilled around here to get to the bottom of his death. So I wanted to ask for your help."
"I'm going to ask Tamli to keep the caravan in town for a few days, I'd ask that you don't leave either. See what you can find and if it proves useful, and I find who did it, then alls well and good. If not, I'll have to ask you to stay until the circuit judge gets here in about 2 months' time."
"How does that sound?"
"Laurel is right! Someone clearly murdered him! What are you doing about it? What about Tamli? He was gone a long time...and I think maybe those farmers started that fight on purpose as a distraction!"
"If I remember rightly, Tamli is a 'she' not a he. Though it's sometimes hard to tell with half-orcs. She's pretty capable too and been with Bort longer than I've known them. I'd be surprised. But I wont rule her out."
"Two months?!"
Wax gets ahold of himself quickly and actually starts to blush. "No that doesn't matter. I didn't know Bort that well but he seemed a good fellow and no one should have to go out that way. I'll help anyway I can. What should we do though? I'm no constable."
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Laurel jumps with excitement.
Having lost his home and only just stowed away on the caravan with his mother, he is happy to relegate himself to the shelter in place here for 2 months. Shelter is, well, shelter, after all.
Saluting the captain with a puffed chest and straight back - and accidentally poking himself in the eye "Ah agree sir - we liable ta be the moss skilled roun' here, an' fass too!" He draws his daggers and demonstrates his prowess in an attempt to impress the sheriff "An' when we finds whut did in ol' Bort, give 'em a THIS an' a THAT!" Modeling his fighting technique twirling daggers and leaping all around.
Laurel puts his daggers away and concludes with "An' we kin discuss Com-Pen-Say-Shun after we bring in arr Cul-Pritt" feigning the negotiation skills of a diplomat!
Laurel puts his daggers away and concludes with "An' we kin discuss Com-Pen-Say-Shun after we bring in arr Cul-Pritt" feigning the negotiation skills of a diplomat!
"There's not a lot of cash around here, but I'll see what I can do if you find whoever did this."
Esha frowns and sets her jaw stubbornly. "Well...what is it you want us to do? I still think we should talk to Tamli. And the farmers.
"Talk to them is exactly what I want you to do. Poisonings like this don't happen around here. So I doubt whoever did it is well-practiced. They may have left clues. If you can narrow down my search list by questioning, then it all helps us find the culprit."
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"Yes yes! On my way," said Calvus trying his best to be patient. Gnomes were an exuberant lot, and possessed of almost obsessive focus. Calvus reminded himself that those qualities would be helpful in finding who poisoned the bard.
Laurel is pleased the sheriff addressed him personally - he feels as if he has "won" the negotiation. Truth is, he'd do it all for "free" in any case, but his oldest brother once told him that one should "endeavor to seek payment proportional to work", so, although he is not quite sure why this must be so - nor whether "one" applies equally to him as it does to his other brothers and sisters (and now his comrades here!) - he mentally checks the box of having heeded the sagely advice.
Laurel follows Esha as quickly as he can, and puts on his "most serious face" as he is now "on the case" "Righ behin' ye, Esha. Les git'em this poisonner whoever they be, an bring'em in fass as can be!" He glances at Calvus to gauge whether his what he just said is of correct application to the problem at hand, remembering yesterday how the man shut down the whole bar with just his words!
Oosa listened carefully. He's sure he caught like 40% of that. Pretty good for a goblin, really. When Esha and Calvus rushed out, he called behind. "Me gonna go back to tavern, talk there."
Oosa will slowly make his way back to the Tavern and and look about for the goblin there. People treated the goblins like crap when they were in the way but otherwise they get ignored, same with beggers, disabled, elderly and crazies but because they get ignored doesnt mean they don't see things. He figures he might have seen something or heard a plot from one of the tavern folk.
"People are greaving here, have you no respect for the dead?!" The half-orc is enraged, but it is clear that her anger is a flare of emotion. Tears stain her faintly green cheeks even now.
|
|
"Of course, I do! That's why we're here! We need to get more information! Where were you when Bort was killed? When we had dinner last night? You left! Where did you go?! Why do you think someone would have wanted to kill, Bort? Do you know why someone would have done it?"
Oosa makes his way over Delma slowly and hesitantly. He stops a short distance away and says, "Is Phinick around? I wants to talk with him. No see many goblins and maybe make friend?" Oosa says to Delma.
Calvus stays with Esha. He feels somewhat torn, but feels like Oosa can manage on his own.
"Forgive the intrusion in such a delicate time,"[b] he says.[b]"You understand don't you that the longer it takes us to find the bastard that did this, the greater the chance that they will get away with it? Anything you can think of about that night will help us close the gap between us ans the killer,"
"Get to the point. What do you want?"
|
|
"Stables? Fields? I go there then. Tank you," Oosa says and then scurries out his way out of there. With the stable the closest mentioned, he heads that direction first. Making his way into the stable he unceremoniously yells, "Phinick, it me Oosa. Phinick you heres?"
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
1 > Oosa
2 > Esha
...and arrives just in time to see Tamli square up on Esha, so he quickly dashes between them, rising to his complete height of nearly four and a half feet "Hey now, why doncha pickon somewhut yer own size, huh! I just don run in with a sneaky crittur what thought mighta hadta done wif what all went down - poor ol' Bort 'n all - turnt out it wernt Per-Tin-Ant ta what we gots goin' up here - leavin' fer alla quarter-n-hour an here we gots a nuther rumble what bouts ta pop off!" Laurel puts up his dukes and says "Go on an' hit me if ya can!" and rising to his toes prepared to counter Tamli with a dash-around-hip-grab if it comes to it...
Laurel relaxes his stance, obviously proud at himself for having de-escalated the situation. He thinks on how his eldest sister would be proud. "Okee" he acknowledges Tamli's request to be left alone.
Hearing Esha's suggestion "Arrighty!" and immediately strides away ready to talk to the farmers, but quickly comes back an says "Now were duz these farmers be?" scratching his head a little.
(Esha and Laurel waiting expectantly for the continued wisdom of Calvus...)