Andrei unabashedly scrutinizes the new arrival, carefully studying his words, his mannerisms, even the way he moves when he walks over to Petyr. As Park comments on the journal, the burly man finally speaks, not to him but to Petyr, "He doesn't seem like he's hiding anything... I think he really did come for the funeral, and to help."
Turning to Park, he adds, "We've met once before. It was a party after one of the big dueling events... I, like most in attendance, was enjoying a few stiff drinks, but you were playing some kind of drum along with some other musicians..." He pours himself some brandy while he speaks, as if it will refresh his memory then concludes, "and that girl playing the lute was just magnificent... those bright, sky-blue eyes, and so top-heavy you couldn't hardly see her lute hiding out under there..."
Petyr laughs, almost blushing as Andrei recalls a busty lutenist and glad that he agrees that Park seems a good sort. "Maybe Park was distracted by her, too," he says with his tongue stuck out. "She'd probably have appreciated a limerick tune."
He then turns their attention back to the investigation as he starts to make himself a sandwich with some ingredients in Kendra's kitchen. "Right then. You're right about Harrowstone, near as we can tell. We were planning to head into the Restlands after lunch, and then back again in the evening. We're trying to do things by the book as we can, so no tomb-plundering until we help out the local Temple with a bit of investigation: rumors of suspicious figures stalking around in the Restlands."
Petyr also pours himself a draught of brandy to accompany his sandwich. "As for the names, we didn't even have to go that far. There's a memorial in the middle of town with all the names carved in it, all twenty-five of them. It was vandalized recently--a big red "V" painted with cat's blood."
With his lunch fully prepared, Petyr sits and starts to eat. "So when you're ready, we should go to the Restlands for our initial pass."
Park laughs at Andrei's description, then opens his pack to unwrap his tambourine. "There's a cantrip that allows a Bard to temporarily conjure any instrument, but I don't know it yet. This tambourine is the only instrument I have at my disposal for the time being. It is a percussion instrument, somewhat like a drum." He beats a quick staccato and sings a short war chant. "And I can add magic to the song to improve morale, helping the aim and strengthening the attacks of allies." He grins again, his eyes with a far off look, "And I do remember that lute player as well. I tried for several weeks to get her to join me for a... 'duet'. I'm not sure she had interest in men. Or at least she wasn't interested in me."
Back to business he takes his seat again for a good lunch. "I hadn't thought to ask that but I'm glad to hear that no tomb-plundering is planned. The Professor seemed an honorable man and I figured that he wasn't sponsoring any that would. But the journal mentioned supplies stored by the Pharasman church in a false crypt. Surely locating that wouldn't be tomb-raiding? That would be why you, I mean why we will be helping out the temple with their investigation? Sounds simple enough."
He turns to eating with the gusto of the young and quickly finishes the food. Packing his instrument he closes his pack and stands, "That's it then. Ready when you are. Did anyone clean the blood from the monument? A simple spell would suffice."
"I believe that cleaning up the blood would constitute 'tampering with evidence,' and Sheriff Caller already seems to not like us for no good reason. I'm sure once he's documented the scene that he'll set to cleaning it."
”It seems that very few people in this town like outsiders at all,” Andrei adds. “I wouldn’t count on a warm welcome anywhere while we’re here, even though we’re trying to help.”
"Hmm.... 'Tampering with evidence'? I guess I can see that. That's worth knowing so I don't make mistakes to get the sheriff after us. I did notice that this wasn't a very welcoming town. I had to ask over a dozen people for directions before I got something other than 'Go away' or 'Back where you came from'. One didn't say a word but just pointed back the way I had come in. Pretty easy to figure out that meant 'Get out of town!'"
"So I guess the tasks ahead of are a short list.... Prove that the Whispering Way killed the Professor, Prove that the Professor was an honorable man just trying to protect the people of the town, and get rid of the haunts in the prison? Think they'll give us the Key to the Town if we can do all that? Make us honorary citizens? Parade out all of the attractive single women for us to chose from?"
Petyr laughs at that escalation. "Well a fellow Lepidstadtian operates an apothecary in town and can fix you up with some bachelor snuff if you're keen on chasing down any attractive single women. But until then," he nods, polishing off the last bite of his sandwich, "You've got the right idea."
With a quick crack of his neck, Petyr stands up. "To the Restlands then."
Andrei sits quietly, staring off into the distance, as he eats his sandwich and drinks his brandy. When Petyr stands and makes a declaration he blinks and turns to look at his friend. He furrows his brow in confusion and then confesses, “I’m sorry… I got distracted thinking about that lutist and didn’t hear a word either of you said.”
Petyr sticks his tongue out once more at Andrei. "That's all right, Andrei. I'll be the smart one, Park can be the pretty one, and you can be the strong one. We'll all probably get a lass in the end." Then he shrugs. "Or a lad."
”Very well,” Andrei answers with a smirk as he rises from his seat and downs the remainder of his brandy, “as the strong one, I say it’s time for action. Let’s head out to the Restlands.”
Park glances at Petyr and Andrei, then back to Petyr. "That'll be a lass for me! Never understood.... Oh, never mind! Off to the Restlands then!"
"And the correct description is Handsome! Not pretty!! Careful or I'll change your hair color to bright green when you sleep! Make people think you're a tall gnome."
“Alright, pretty boy,” Andrei answers as he opens the door.
He follows Petyr—whom he’s sure knows the town better than he does—out into the streets and towards the Restlands. Once they’re safely out of earshot of the Professor’s home, he explains—in graphic detail—how it works with two lads, pointing out that the mechanics aren’t that dissimilar from options available when a lad beds a lass. He concludes with, “perhaps you haven’t bedded enough lasses, or creative enough lasses, to know about that option.”
Petyr hums along innocently as he leads the way back to the Restlands, wondering how he would look with bright green hair. Probably pretty good, he decides with satisfaction as Andrei informs Park about other options. "No need for bachelor snuff with that option," he concludes with a chuckle.
Perhaps it's his youth, or.... ?? Park is at first disgusted with the details provided by Andrei. Is the man that way? But as he goes on and on in great, graphic detail Park decides that he doesn't want to know!
With the completion, including an indirect suggestion that perhaps he lacked experience, followed by Petyr's comment and chuckle Park decides that Andrei was just teasing him. "I see. Well, I mean that I understand, or at least I think so. Perhaps once the town learns to like us we could hire one of the local lads of such inclination and you could provide a demonstration? With the description you gave, obviously you have experience, so I can almost visualize the event. But I'm fairly certain that I'll stay with lasses for myself. Unless your demonstration is really convincing!"
Andrei chuckles at Park’s retort. “How do you know which you like better if you don’t try both?” he asks flatly enough that it’s hard to know if he’s kidding or not. “Find me a lass who looks like that lutist and I’ll put on a demonstration for you. Then you can decide how muscular a backside you want to try it with.”
Petyr continues laughing, almost to the point of cackling, as Park and Andrei seem to be in a competition of Chicken. "Just kiss each other already," he wheezes in between fits of uproarious laughter.
At Petyr's comment, Andrei breaks into full-blown laughter as well. "Hey," he bristles, "I was not offering my backside, just for the record. Though, I've been told it looks quite fetching."
As the laughter subsides, he looks around and comments, "it seems to be taking us a while to get there... how much further are to the Restlands?"
Park joins in with the laughing. "No thanks Petyr. Had Andrei been offering I'd've had to decline. I really do prefer the lasses, and I prefer the lasses that can't break me across a knee if they're so inclined. A little rough play can be fun, but I prefer to not be needing healing magic the morning after!"
Park glances around. "I don't know where anything is. But this town isn't very big. Everything is just a short stroll from wherever you happen to be. That's part of the problem.... Small so everyone knows everyone, so everyone associates us with the Professor and whatever their problem is with him."
"'Course that'll also be a good thing once we clear the Professor and fix the problem. Everybody in town will know that we did it!"
"Then Andrei can have the broad shouldered stable girl that he really wants.... Hopefully she won't smell like the stable!"
Petyr tries to stifle his laughter as they all finally finish the northern approach to the Restlands. "Here we are," he announces, doing the Sign of the Spiral in front of his chest and bowing his head. He shakes his arms, trying to render himself serious even as half a dozen dirty jokes and innuendoes dance on the top of his tongue.
The Restlands are at the far northern edge of the town of Ravengro, and the back of the extensive graveyard bleeds into the dark and dank moors beyond the borders. As the sun makes its ever-repeating descent behind the horizon, another bank of rain clouds make an appearence to threaten more rain over the evening.
With the instructions the priest gave you, the three of you easily make your way to the crypt he mentioned. A multi-family building sized burial crypt, it is certainly impressive. Stylized angels mixed in with recurring circular spiral patterns adorn the outside marble, with numerous names scrawled around the edges of the trim.
Park, ever watchful in his new surroundings, finds a handful of scattered tracks that seem like they're not fresh but from recently. The rain over the past few days has created plenty of mud around, it seems, and the tracks are pretty obvious once you notice them.
The door guarding the entrance is solid wrought iron, but doesn't seem to be locked.
Petyr nods appreciatively to Park. "Good eye," he compliments. "No reason to be inherently suspicious, but it might be good to figure out where those are going to or coming from. Andrei, you're good with that sort of thing, eh? Want to check them out first or take a look within the crypt?"
Petyr looks at the tracks in the mud and shrugs. Not that he'd be able to do much to help, but eh.
Park studies the tracks for a couple of seconds, then accepts that he doesn't know much about tracking.... "The Professor?"
"He said that he was going to take supplies to deal with the restless spirits. I hope there's enough to help us...."
"If there's a chance they might be waiting inside to ambush us, it'd be nice to know ahead of time," Andrei answers as he crouches to examine the footprints.
All humor set aside Park watches as Andrei studies the tracks. He stays to the side of the trail but moves up to the door.
"Valid concern. The door doesn't seem to be locked. Anyone could be inside. If you two would ready your weapons I'll pull the door open. Unless anyone else has a better idea?"
Petyr pulls his rapier out. "Ready when you are."
Hopefully it was just kids drinking, or something like that, but there was too much evidence to the contrary.
Park grabs the handle to the door and pulls it open, stepping out of the way as he does it.
Andrei scowls for a moment at his failure to make sense of the tracks. Then he draws his kukri and prepares for whatever might wait beyond the gate.
Unfortunately, the tracks don't seem to lead anywhere specific, and they go for a few feet before the mud and rain obscure them. The gate opens less easily than you might expect, being made of heavy marble, but it does open. Inside is a relatively small crypt, fitting to the size of the building you saw from the outside.
As soon as the door opens, a disgusting scent of decay and blood sweeps over the group. A closer look into the crypt itself reveals a horrific scene, as four bodies lay among drying pools of blood surrounding them and sprayed across the walls. Various supplies and smashed open crates are spread around the area.
Three of the crypts have been smashed apart, and standing inside are three slowly shambling figures. Their flesh hangs from their emaciated bodies and each of their hands ends in long claws covered in dried blood. As the door swings loudly open the three figures turn towards you and moan from rotting vocal cords, claws raising.
Park sees (and smells) the disgusting monsters and draws his machete. He holds back though to let the things come forward, and to sing a short, inspiring battle chant.
Ah, so he is a bard! Useful.
Petyr surges forward and tries to stab his blade through one of the shambling figures' throats.
They smell like zombies. They look like zombies. They might be zombies.
Petyr’s attack seems less effective than he thought it should be, but the zombie still stumbles as his throat collapses, and it falls to the ground.
Withdrawing his blade from the killing wound, Petyr looks back at the others. "Zombies. That was a lucky blow, but you lot with your edged blades will have an easier time. Cut them down!"
Andrei studies his zombie target as he steps towards it and slashes at it with his kukri.
Andrei does strike the zombie, but it is not felled quite yet.
It takes this chance to retaliate towards its attacker, one arm lashing out towards him. It swings wide, however, missing completely. The other zombie shambles forward next to Petyr, but is too sluggish to do anything else.
Petyr defensively circles around the shambler to give Park a charging lane (should he desire to get into the thick of melee), and then tries to puncture another hole in his latest undead adversary.
Feeling confident, Petyr pokes several quick holes in the zombie as though creating a pattern for his new bardic acquaintance to come through and cut along. "Show us how a machete gets it done," he says with a grin despite the grimness of the situation.
Seeing the clear lane ahead, and knowing that the effect of his bardic music would continue longer than this battle probably would, Park charges in beside Petyr, hacking at the zombie.
"Apparently the same way your rapier does, just not with such pretty, little holes.... Thanks for the line of dots to follow!
Petyr and Pace combine attacks on the third zombie, and take it down easily, Pace's machete cutting through the weak flesh of the thing and sending it to the ground in a pile.
Andrei tries to take advantage of the zombie's errant swing and slashes at its exposed side with his kukri.
Andrei misses the zombie by an inch, perhaps underestimating how slow the zombie truly is. It strikes out again but also misses catastrophically, its arm swinging wide once more. It looks slower than even its opening state, the battle wearing it down.
Seeing the zombie over by Andrei still up Park moves over beside him and joins the attack.
"Come on, you lot, we can do better than this!" Petyr says, stepping up to skewer his half-slashed-open opponent. His stance is less defensive, but he still focuses on putting some power behind his thrust, to try to fell the undead despite its resistance to his weapon of choice. Right through the skull this time ought to do the trick this time.
Petyr manages to finish it off finally, even through the zombie’s tough piercing defenses. It falls to the floor in a sickening crunch, leaving the crypt in silence once more.
What an awful scene it presented, blood from both living and long dead bodies sprayed across just about every surface. Something horrible had happened here, that’s for sure.
Park wipes the blade of his machete and sheaths it, looking around the area. "Well. I think the cultists from the Way beat us here. I wonder who these sods were? And, did they clean out everything the Professor had indicated we might could use?"
Andrei flicks the gore off his blade and looks around the crypt. “Well… I think we may have found what the priest was worried about.”
"I hope these aren't killed and reanimated villagers. Don't want them thinking that we killed all of these."
Park examines the bodies looking for any indication of how long they've been dead and what killed them.
Petyr grimly wipes his blade clean of undead blood and sheathes it. "Different Crypt," he says to Park, realizing that his earlier explanation hadn't covered all of the details. "But right--since Father Grimburrow sent us here, I don't think he'll suspect us of murdering the living. Now Sheriff Caller, he might try to give us trouble. But it won't take much looking to see our weapons and what killed whom."
Petyr starts looking over the bodies to try to prove his point, trusting Park to give the crypt a good canvassing.