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Session10

The Murder Investigation

The Party thinks Jarl killed his wife, who hasn't been seen for a while.

Background Scene

Our heroes are slowly healing from wounds, have had a bath, and have decided that they'll kill some time before heading out to the Mines of Chaos by perhaps finding (and perhaps killing) a killer.

Xy is busy with Gurge, and Roger seems to have decided the whole thing is a waste of time and he wouldn't be any help. Also, he's reluctant to cast spells after the dressing down Xy got.

Background

1. Ella (may or may not have) slept with one of the guards in the keep.
2. Jarl discovered this and in a pique of rage, tossed him over the battlements (and hence over the falls)
3. Jarl was tossed in jail, for about a month (seriously, WTF - murder? a month?)
4. Jarl got out of jail
5. Less than a month later, Jarl's wife Ella vanishes suddenly. "Went on a trip." A trip, Mangrus' balls. (Mangrus = gawd of disease. They stink. It stinks. Get it?)
6. No one actually knew Ella v well, it seems?
7. Yamilet, one of the dancing girls, has been subdued and unhappy since then. Maybe she knew Ella better than anyone thought.

Day 2 after returning from the swamps

Yamilet is approached

Noer does most of the talking with Yamilet. Don't ask me why.

In fact, for the sake of anyone who actually reads this, we'll skip the entire conversation, and just give basic idea. Yeah. That's best.

Noer: approaches Yamilet. Likes her embroidery. Turns out she does it herself. Attempts to compliment and flirt. The words "wink wink" were uttered (there's lots of reason to skip the actual conversation). Vanessa attemps to ease things, and Y runs away.

Noer approaches Jarl and says he thinks he offended Y and wants to buy her a round. Jarl thinks N is funny, especially after N's story about the statue/mimic." Y doesn't drink much so Noer offers to send her dinner or something.

That evening, Vanessa prays to Sumar-Fareen for guidance in this matter.

Day 3

A Meeting with someone in Charge

Noer arranges a meeting with Yadris?. (remember Yadris?)

Noer says he has two things to bring up.

First, the party would like to Volunteer as specialists for defence of the Keep from the Hobgoblin menace. "You can count on us, sir."

"Also, we might have killed somebody. Just kidding!!"

The adjutant? chokes on something he's drinking and looks up. Yadris' eyes narrow. "And two?"

"I am a little concerned that Jarl's wife disappeared mysteriously. I am concerned with the timing." Now Yadris' eyebrows have raised. "I'd like to discretely investigate - with no Keep resources - but I don't like the timing. My concern is that she may have been a spy. Her lover had access to keep info, and she disappeared a bit before the hobgoblin raid on the caravan."

Yadris doesn't look super impressed but he doesn't outright forbid anything: "Don't get into any trouble. Is there anything else?"

The interview ends, and Yadris directs Noer not to bothe...I mean, directs Noer to bring any further information to his clerk, Marcus Jameson?.

Meanwhile, at the Tilted Keg, there's a new Dancing Girl

Vanessa's dreams were troubled by blood, but she can't remember any details.

While she's eating a very late breakfast (lunch) with the party, Vanessa sees Marlene talking with Jarl and a short half-orc woman. The three go into a back room and a bit later, as Noer is returning, Marlene comes out and introduces the party to Zana, a new "dancing girl." Vanessa is very friendly, and talks about Sumar-Fareen, contraception, and protection from STDs.

It turns out Yami has not come out for breakfast or lunch, and Noer grabs Marlene's attention. He says Yamilet reminds him of one of his sisters and he wants to apologize for offending her." (Remember that "wink wink" above? Just wait, it gets worse.) Marlene says she'll check and pass the message along.

Back to pester the Clerk and then to meet some Conscripts!

Clerks

Noer has a few more questions for the clerk, and goes to bother him. Jameson meets with him in the noisy Lower Baily, and Noer talks quietly with him.

Noer would like to "audit the trial transcript for Jarl's previous murder and talk to the commanding officer of the dead fellow. And perhaps other men in his unit. Also, who do go to?"

Well, it turns out Jameson can't do much to help Noer there: the transcript - if there is one - would be stored somewhere in the Middle Baily, as the crime happened in that jurisdiction. As to who the dead fellow was, he was just some conscript? Jameson, like so many others, is prejudiced against them and doesn't really care. But details might be in the trial notes. He looks slightly interested in the whole thing, and offers to see if he can track down any information from the previous trial.

Conscripts

Our heroes manage to find a few conscripts, and by extensive tracking (including Noer saying he wants to F up Jarl) eventually find a few of the dead man's buddies. They finally get a name to go with the dead man: Declan (DEh klən). The party gathered he looked kind of like a younger Jarl (before Jarl got the scar on his face), that he didn't drink, and that he was almost certainly banging Ella. Or if not Ella, than someone else. He was quiet enough about who it was, but was getting some action and happy about it.

The two conscripts they were chatting with, Neo and Tom, were happy to help, and if there was anything else they could do, just let them know.

The rest of the day: stalking and an unrelated meeting

Noer dedicates himself to studying this "reading" thing. And also just happens to be in a position he can watch the comings and goings of people, to try and get a sence of schedules, approaches, etc. He also tries to dedicate himself to drinking while studying, but Vanessa warns him "drinking is bad for healing." SHe's clearly never used strong spirits for pain control or disinfection (of stomach wounds, of course).

He does get a fair idea of the schedule people keep and realizes the timing is going to be tricky, given how the main room isn't empty very often and patrons may have a view of any approaches to the kitchen, storerooms, and even the hallways to guestrooms.

  Level 1
  +--[]-----------------------------------+
  |                      |     stage1     |
  |                     [] B              |  [] - doors
  |     kitchen          | A     T    T   |  >  - stairs down
  |                      |>R             s|       (top end)
  |   >                  | |      T      t|  <  - stairs up
  +---------[]------+----+ +             a|  w  - window
  | private |*|    |     |               g|  T  - tables,etc
  |  dining ||     |     |               e|  *  - Kryleena
  \   rooms |+--[]-+--[]-+<<<<     TT    2|       incident
   -\      []                      TT     |
     -\     |--[]-+-[]-[]+                |  Super not to scale
       w\   |     |   |  |  T  T          |    or to proportion even
         -w----w---------------w--[]--w---+

  Level 2
  +--w------w--------w--------------------+
  | rooms|rooms | etc    |priv|ate r|ooms |
  |      |      |        | (by|the h|our) |  [] - doors
  |<<<<<[]-----[]----[]--+-[]----[]---[]--|  >  - stairs down
  |-----[]-------------- +----------------|  <  - stairs up
  |      |    |   |     ||                |  w  - window
  +------|    |   |     ||                |
  |Jarl's|    |   |     ||    this room   |
  | room |---[]--[]--[]-||      is two    |  Heck, even the basic
  \     []               >>>>>  stories   |    shapes might be
   -\    |-[]----[]---[]-|      high      |    wrong.
     w\  |  | part|y's   |                |
       w\|  |   ro|oms   |                |  Eh, close enough
         -w----w------w-----------w---w---+

  Level 3 has barely enough room to stand
    up in, one narrow hallway, servants' rooms
   wl+------------------------------+
   wl|              | Y|            |
   wl|------+       |  |            |  [] - doors
   wl|  >>>>|[]---[]-[]-[]-[]--[]---|  >  - stairs down
   WT|                           |  |  Y  - Yamilet's room
   WT|---[]--[]--[]--[]--[]----[]-  |  wl - keep wall
   WT|                              |  WT - basic watchtower
    wl                              |       that is now
     wl-----------------------------+       manned
      wl

In an effort to find out what's down the hallway and estimate room sizes, Noer asks the elven serving girl (Kryleena?) to show him some private dining rooms. She's bored, but willing, and after he knocks on walls pokes in corners and says it won't do for him because he needs privacy, she shrugs and lets him out of the room. Then she turns down the narrow hallway to the kitchens, and Noer follows her, hoping to get a glimps of that hereto unknown room. She suddenly whirls on him, and before he could say "sneakiness" she has the point of her dagger at his throat. Noer catiously backs out of the situation and makes it out alive.

Day 4

The party discusses various ways of exploring the inn, from offering to work there (as a cook? Or Vanessa could try her hand at dancing - and other things (beside her hands)?), to outright breaking and entering. Further observations are made on who is where and when. Yamilet continues to be elusive. Breaking and entering wins the vote.

Jarl's chambers

The party decides to take advantage of the proximity of their rooms and Jarl's bedroom to do some snooping. Vanessa distracts Jarl in the main room ("Oh, Jarl, your stories from when you were a thief are so fascinating! Tell me another one!" <nudge nudge>) while Noer softly creeps down the dark corridor to his bedroom door. Cautious exploration with lockpicks reveal to the thief that Jarl's bedroom has a much better lock than the rest of the Inn. Further efforts with the lockpicks manage to open the door, and 'click' - a tiny needle shoots out right in front of Noer's eyes, missing his thumb by the barest hair's breadth. A tiny needle with something dark and sticky on it. Sweat breaks out on his forehead as Noer realizes he just missed a trap. Still, the door is open now, so...onward!

The bedroom itself turns out to be a disappointment: it's slightly messy, with a pile of dirty clothes in one corner, a desk with papers and some boxes, a few clothes on pegs, a locked trunk that contained yet more clothes. Noer does a doubletake as he realizes half the clothes in the room are women's clothes, and Jarl probably wouldn't fit in them. Why did Ellen leave her clothes if she left the Keep? More evidence of murder!

But the room reveals no other secrets, and Noer quietly leaves and carefully locks the door behind him.

The party has to wait to explore the cellar, as there's a big birthday party going on, but they don't want to wait any longer than tonight.

That night: an Exploratory Raid

Vanessa blesses Noer, wishes him, luck, and heads to their room to prepare her part in things.

Noer prepares his bag of tools, orders a drink to go at the bar, and proceeds outside. He acts drunk for the benefit of any watchers and falls against one of the torches outside the door and knocking it to the ground. He then staggers off to the newly darkened corner under Jarl's bedroom windows and "waters the building."

The Diversion

Vanessa meanwhile has closed herself in her bedroom, lit some candles, and stripped down to a comfortable set of no clothing to do some sweaty calistenics and hot yoga. She accidentally neglects to close the window. Oops.

The raid

In one soft moment, Noer pops open a shuttered window to one of the private dining rooms, tosses his bag through, and follows it with his body. He quickly closes the window behind him and proceeds towards his next goal: the now empty kitchen, which has finally closed for the night.

The locks in his way weren't too difficult to deal with, and he soon was creeping down into the cellar, where he lit an hour candle and started searching.

  The Cellar
  +--------<--------+
  |shelves   E  more|
  |h                |   <  -  stairs up
  |e      BB       s|   E  -  an empty barrel
  |l               h|         next to a hammer
  |vstacked        e|         and some nails
  |scratesetc   sevl|   BB -  a large bloodstain?
  +-----------------+

What Noer was looking for:

• Any recently resealed barrels? (No)
• Any secret entrances? Trap doors? Hidden chambers? (No)
• ...anything weird? Well...

He did find an empty barrel that looked ready to be sealed back up, but the full import of this didn't become evident until later. Most importantly, he discovered a large bloodstain the middle of the floor. On his way back up, he discovered a bloody handprint underneath the railing. Clues!

What Noer didn't find:

• A body
• A murder weapon
• Any alcohol. Hey, where's the wine cellar? Does it connect? He can't find any secret (or obvious) doors... Maybe it's separate?

Day 5

Quote of the Morning

"That's not love; that's something else."

"It counts."

Early explorations

While staff were cleaning up from the party last night, a few discreet questions are asked about having to clean up any blood in the private rooms. Maybe the blood dripped through to the cellar? No one remembers anything like that.

Noer finds Yamilet and apologises to her, and tries talking to her about his dead sister, hoping to elicit a sympathetic response and then turn the conversation to someone Yami recently lost (that is, Ellen). He's frustrated in his approach by a complete lack of empathic reaction from her. (All she seems to be thinking is "this is some weird dude who is telling me things about his life I didn't need to know...")

Now what?? Possible plans

1. Noer could try further manipulating Yamilet and trying to get some response from her. This has not gotten him anywhere so far (because she was not actually in any way close to Ellen --GM)
2. Oleum could confront Yamilet as a "bad cop": "We know everything. It's time for you to talk." (For the record, a good intimidation roll could very well have worked here --GM)
3. Vanessa could approach Yamilet and tell her to "trust me." (This might have worked too - Vanessa did already have a good relationship with the dancing girls)
4. The party could ...."No one votes for starting things on fire!" (Roger is ready to cast Aura of Innocence if he needs to)
5. Get the barmaids drunk and question them ("We could poison them?")

Roger does have plans for the day: he is finishing his studying of the new spell today.

The creepy dude asks Yamilet out to lunch

Noer asks Yami if she'd like to get lunch; when she finds out the rest of the party is going, she agrees, and everyone heads to the Three Leaves to the Wind for their lunch special (kabobs! Y has never been - she seems to sink all her money into her costumes). Yay lunch party!

As light conversation, Noer opens with "I think Jarl's wife was a spy for the Hobgoblins! Ha ha! Back me up on this Yamilet. What kind of person was she?"

Yamilet gets all quiet and admits she doesn't know. She doesn't actually seem that interested in the conversation, but the kabobs are tasty.

The conversation goes downhill quickly, reaching the point where Vanessa tells Yamilet, "You see why I offered counseling for people who know Noer?" Yamilet asks if he's always like this, and he jumps in with "Sometimes I'm dying in a dungeon." This leads to a spirited conversation of past exploits barely survived and Vanessa announces loudly, "I was nearly cut in half!" She then gets up to show off her big scar in the middle of the inn.

(: Vanessa's preaching style As far as preaching styles go, showing off scars demonstrating how bad you are at defending yourself in combat is fairly unorthodox, and unlikely to gain much favor with the church's hierarchy. On the other hand, people are fairly impressed with what a priestess of Sumar-Fareen can survive, and stories are spreading. :)

Yamilet is appalled: "that looks so bad! It must have ruined your clothes. I'm surprised you survived!" "Sumar-Fareen healed the flesh very well. Look, you can see how she's healed me here, and here, and all of us, too!" Murmurs from other tables suggest Vanessa's show-and-tell hasn't gone unnoticed by diners, altho the party is focused on Yamilet and pays little attention.

Noer tries to get back on script, questioning her, Vanessa again offers counseling, and a customer drops their plate. As the sound of broken crockery fills the room, everyone glances over and when they get back to their conversation, Yamilet is halfway out the door.

There's nothing left to do but box up Yamilet's uneaten kobabs and finish eating quickly.

Noer talks to Jameson.

Our investegator extrodinaire heads to the Lower Bailey and hunts up Jameson. He gains an audience, sits down and tells the adjutant pretty much everything. Mostly. Noer asks if there's a record of Ella leaving and Jameson looks very thoughtful and goes to check the records. When he returns, he's able to answer "no" - there's no official record of Ella Ellensdottor leaving the Keep by the gate. However, this still isn't quite enough to authorize an arrest. Highly suspicious, yes? Enough to arrest someone? Not quite, to Noer's disappointment.

So our hero offers the party as bait to try to lure Jarl into rash action (without consulting them beforehand, I might add). Jameson listens, finishes up whatever notes he was writing and suddenly turns it around towards Noer. "Sign here, please, and we'll see where we go from here. Yes, if you end up needing guards I'm sure we can provide something." Noer signs as well as he can.

Back at the Tilted Keg

As soon as the party rejoins and returns to the Keg, Marlene walks forward and confronts them. "What did you do to Yamilet?" Noer starts talking about mimics and Marlene stops him to ask, confused, "there was a mimic in the Keep?" Vanessa assures her "no, no it's all okay. What happened to Yamilet?" "She's ran up to her room crying almost an hour ago and hasn't let anyone in." Vanessa trades looks with Noer and says "I think we'd better apologise to Yamilet. Where is her room?" Marlene hesitates and then answers "On the top floor, 3rd door on the left. See if you can help her."

Oleum heads to the party's rooms and arms the fighters. Noer and Vanessa head upstairs and find Yamilet's room. Her door is closed, but she's inside, and they quietly open the door. Yami is sitting in the back corner of her bed, hugging her arms around her legs, and softly crying.

Noer steps forward and says "We need to talk about the night Jarl's wife left." Yamilet swallows a sob, shudders, and barely above a whisper begins. "Okay. I...I was...<sniff> I was up late and ..."

Yamilet's Story

The story comes in fits and starts, but it all comes out. Yamilet had helped herself to a snack from the kitchen and had heard arguing from the cellar. This wasn't too unusual, so she ingored it and made up a little plate. She was heading to one of the private rooms to eat it when she heard Jarl come up the stairs. She ducked out of the kitchen, and stood as quietly as she could, hoping he wouldn't notice her there, while he came out and headed for the common room. She heard him saying over and over to himself "Oh shit. I killed her. I killed her. Shit shit shit. I killed her." A few seconds later, he came back in with someone else, and Yamilet took the opportunity to go down the corridor and flee upstairs. She hid in her room and tried to forget what she'd heard, but when Ellen disappeared, Yami panicked. If Jarl ever figured out she had heard him, he might do something awful to her too! She was scared and new she needed to tell someone, but so worried about Jarl, she didn't know what to do, and as she kept quiet, her secret festered and ate at her, and she stayed frightened and on edge.

Noer and Vanessa tell Yamilet that she has to talk to one of the keep officials, and she looks at Vanessa and says "will you protect me?" Vanessa assures her "Yes, I will."

Oleum arrives at that moment in full battle regalia. Vanessa helps Yami up and tells her "we should go talk to the Commandant now." Yamilet straightens her clothes and wipes her face, and then the party troops downstairs.

Jarl sees everyone coming down and yells up from the common room "and what are all YOU up to?" Oleum stands at the bannister and answers in a loud voice "We're going to go to fight one of the Pack Apes. After that, kill an owlbear." For a few seconds, Jarl only stares at him, and then he bursts out into loud laughter.

The party continues to the ground floor and Vanessa loudly tells Oleum that "we girls are going to the baths!" Jarl watches the curiously for a moment, but then turns back to chatting with some of his clients.

Everyone troops out of the Inn and then heads straight to the Lower Baily. Noer sees Jameson outside one of the Towers and flags him down. After a quiet exhange, James directs them inside and comes in a few minutes later with the Commandant himself. Jameson takes up his customary place behind his desk and checks the ink in his pot while Yadris settles himself and asks "now, what's all this?"

Noer quickly explains, and Yadris looks to Yamilet and says "Well?" Jameson speaks up and asks Yamilet to "Please, state your full name and then tell us what you saw." Yamilet stands nervously next to Vanessa and tells her story again. After that events move quickly. Yadris issues orders, Yamilet signs a statement the adjutant profers her, a squad of soldiers forms up outside, and Yadris seals an order with his signet ring (as in, he adds an official seal to the order). The Order of Arrest is handed to a Seargant and the entire squad heads off to the Tilted Keg. Yadris gives the party a brief "good work" and then tells Jameson "I'm going to go talk to Hackinmoore." Noer and Oleum decide to follow the squad to the Keg and watch the outcome.

Jarl is arrested

Back at the Tilted Keg, the Seargant opens the door and everyone marches in. Jarl can tell something is up and demands "What's all this, what's going on?" The Seargant answers by announcing in a loud voice "JARL PAKOR! You are hereby placed under arrest by Keep authorities for the charge of Murder! You will come with us." The firey innkeeper turns a glare on the party and yells "DAMN YOU! Damn you all!" He picks up a chair and throws it at Noer, but Oleum casually steps in front and raises his shield. The Seargant orders "Take him," and Jarl is dragged out of the Inn, kicking and cursing.

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