Session 2: "Legwork" Report

General Summary

28 M'Jehr 3992:

This episode was in black and white; a melancholy saxophone and constant rain set the mood.
In a dark corner of some dive, Dinma the burned monk sat alone.  A dangerous looking elven woman approached him with a job: to restore a dead man's honor.  She offered a 'generous reward.'  Dinma was only concerned with helping the innocent man, but kept the reward in mind to recruit some help from his new friends.  They were amenable.
They began by retracing the previous investigators' steps.  To do so, they needed the official report.  A tedious bureaucrat almost thwarted their efforts straight away, but Eira's squire Evandur arrived with an official decree and a similar inquiry. He told the official that the investigators were with him, gaining them entrance to the legal archives, but not before the wily bureaucrat got the names of those concerned with digging up the past.
The report's author considered the case an obvious one with overwhelming evidence.  The report cited the following.
1. Motive - Jealousy - the victim was having an affair.
2. Eyewitness accounts - the mistress (Mara Andurs) and some bystanders saw Rygar savagely stab his husband, Drogar and drag him into the darkness.
3. Divinatory Evidence - Seers scried the location (behind the brothel) at the time of the murder and confirmed eyewitness accounts and the witnesses were under truth spells.
4. Murder Weapon - A still-bloody dagger in the style of the murderer's people, the investigator's racist assumptions clearly exposed in the comments on this item
Other details were that no body was found, drogar's spirit could not be contacted, and that the murder had taken place a month before.
The heroes went to the brothel next, hoping to follow up on the witness accounts.  Mara was off that night, so after some asking around (flirting) and some clever forgery Illianna was able to get to Mara's room.  There was no answer so she picked the lock and found Mara bleeding out on the floor and an assassin in the room looking down to the street at something.  Mella the druid and Emory the paladin were in the alleys below confirming trajectories and line of sight when some goons ambushed them.  Emory took a brutal beating defending his friends, but the attackers fared worse: Dinma and Illianna's parkour and rooftop combat dealt with the assassins, while Mella and Emory dealt with the lowlifes in the street.  Crow the druid healed Mara, offered some kind words, and dropped to the street below to help Emory and Mella.
The assassins knew their names, taunting the paladin before they attacked.  After the battle Emory was paranoid and reeling from being knocked out.  He mistook Illianna for someone from his past as she nursed his wounds the only way she knew how... with booze.
A search revealed some odd amulets and a letter written in unnervingly precise script which showed the heroes' names and descriptions and a note saying to look for them at the Serene Siren where Drogar was killed; signed -N. An interview with Mara revealed that she doubted her own testimony now, that she couldn't remember anything somehow and that she felt odd when she tried to think about it.
They stayed at the Siren that night instead of returning home.  Illianna payed a visit to a criminal contact named Jonny Goblin-Fingers: "he'll know; he knows everything." High over the city she joined him and his gang for a game of dice while they talked about recent events.  "It's big.  Real big.  Corruption at the highest levels."  He'd seen an amulet like those they'd found before worn by an assassin he'd barely escaped.  He had one significant lead: "Strange folk are stalking Hillside.  And two weeks ago a foul smoke came from the barrows in the cliffs there, the tombs of the ancient kings."

Rewards Granted

A peaceful night's rest with the sirens.

Character(s) interacted with

Anonymous Femme Fatale,
Unhelpful Bureaucrat,
Evandur Greywind,
Mara Andurs (witness) and other sirens,
Jonny Goblin-Fingers (information dealer)

Campaign

Precipice

Protagonists

Report Date

09 Dec 2019

Primary Location

Redstone