Session 14: Tooth, Nail, Arrow, Dagger

Monday, March 29th, 2021 @6:45pm-10pm

General Summary

things things things

Summons to the Border

With a week of travel required for Duul, Emyr, Slab, and Chompsky to return to manor, the remainder of the party settles in at the estate. During this time, Eldin received word from an old contact and had to leave abruptly to attend to personal matters, leaving the party indefinitely. Lavug, for his part, attended to his new job at the estate, teaching the interested students about weaponry and even gaining an apprentice for himself. Vex spent the majority of this time in the library, becoming acquainted with Coprix and gathering any and all information he dubbed interesting and potentially relevant to his own studies and research. When the remainder of the party returned a week of downtime was due for them all. Duul spent time studying once more under Lodun Ó Scolaidhe, and Slab spent time training his working militia and tending to the crystal ball he'd set up now a month or so prior; Lavug and Vex continued as they were prior to the others returning. Ghozun remained absent, having left a letter previously for his brother to let him know that he has been called away. Emyr, still recovering, spends his time at the estate resting in a private room, with Chompsky outside his window.
Their downtime is interrupted by Lavug receiving a letter sent from Bram's Folly, requesting any and everyone with knowledge in engineering or mechanics to help defend the Digger border from eastern invaders. The majority party joins him, and Emyr wakes to discover that the rest of the party has left. Confused, he speaks with Thimbald and learns of their destination. Despite them having a clear head start, Emyr, using his faithful Chompsky as a mount, is able to reach the fortress in question a whole week before them, in part due to the roundabout way the party had to take for safety measures; they travel first Drozg and then to Eldertide where they catch a ride to Bram's Folly . They take The Galwind there, finding out that the former captain of such has found a new home at the bottom of the ocean, as well as that there appears to be a sabotage plot at their destination, though the details of such are unknown even to their spies. Going by carriage the rest of the way, they encounter a mysterious, hitchhiking halfling along the road. They bring him along with them to the city; if nothing else, he claims to be a doctor, and so long as he's more competent than the one they've met previously, they have no qualms with him. The halfling thus exchanges introductions with the party, presenting himself as a druid doctor by the name of Cyrus Flickerfoot. He is a wandering medic, making him, as Duul observes, homeless by choice.
Once they've finally made it to the town, they are stopped at the gate, granted entry only through Lavug's summons letter, with his entourage accepted as "labor," though they are questioned again once through into the city and meeting with the large orc Warchief Stonewall a couple of hours later. He questions their usefulness, but states that they may remain so long as they do not cause any trouble for the city and make themselves useful. Going through to join the rest of the summoned engineers, Lavug is mostly sneered at or otherwise ignored, as he's not entirely known in the community; his talent is nothing to sneeze at, but socializing has never been his forte, leaving him to be almost distrusted if not simply disliked. The rest of the party is made aware of what areas they are allowed to wander while in the fortress, including: the training grounds; a few sections of the wall, for the sake of site-seeing; laborers may check on spots that are deemed for improvement; and portions of the barracks have been set aside for guests.

Fortress Downtime Shenanigans

Both Duul, Vex, and Cyrus decide to make their way jointly to the Training Grounds, finding all of the variations of Digger citizens present, as well as training resources, and a fighting pit. Taking particular interest in seeing if anyone from his clan is present, Duul catches sight of his orc cousin, Grotrug Painted-Hide (Grug for short) in the pits. With little more than bad blood between them, he still curiously moves closer to look on and see how his relative is doing. As it appears, the fight is not going in Grug's favor, and he is taking a pounding as a result, having had the upper hand in the first half but losing that bit of headway only to be knocked out cold by his opponent; this amuses Duul, who never got anything but grief from the man, previously. With the fighters brought out of the ring, Duul approaches his knocked-out cousin as he's plopped into a chair. While his fellow men try to wake him by splashing water in his face, Duul takes the very traditionally Painted-Hide approach and smacks him across the face. This wakes him, causing him to shake in a daze.

"I haven't seen you get laid out like that since you tried to fight a cow as a kid." - Duul Painted-Hide
"Fight... cows... as a... kid....? Horns... scrawny body... Duul?!" - Grotrug "Grug" Painted-Hide
"You can't call yourself an Orc; you haven't earned your green. Get up."
"Oh, like you have room to talk."
"I don't know. I didn't just get my ass handed to me; now, get up."
"Do ya wanna go?"
"No, you already have one concussion, today. You know what the folks always used to say: max two a day."
"I see your time away hasn't loosened your tongue."
"Not sure what you mean from that; you're probably still concussed."

With the banter itself coming to a close, they begin to catch up on family matters; more of a relief than a curse, Duul is not talked about much back home, at least within the family. Of course, they miss Ghozun, and haven't heard from him since he went off to find his brother. Duul tells him that he's doing well and has taken up knitting; this of course catches the brute off-guard, and he assumes that he is simply concussed and mishearing him as a result. The monk-wizard confirms the diagnosis, but confirms that Ghozun has, in fact, taken up knitting; Grug heard him correctly. Leading him to the galley to get some food in his system and catch up with him, Duul leaves the training grounds with Grug, thus leaving Vex wholly unsupervised. While catching up, Grug makes a comment about brawling, stating that brass knuckles and the like are for skinny weaklings; this insights Duul to challenge him to a round in the ring after the former recovers from his concussion, though Grug suddenly seems to forget how many Duuls there are. He states that he needs more grog and that he will be guarding the wall that night, needing to be prepared for it.
Before this can become too much of a problem, however Slab approaches some of the officers and sergeants in order to request that his own militia be able to train under Bram's Folly's tactics. Being a retired soldier himself, especially one that served during the Calamity and the Siege of Bram's Folly, he is looked at as, "a titan among heroes" to them. As such, they announce that they would be more than glad to train his men to make them worthy enough to serve under someone as heroic as him. As arrangements become underway for such, Warchief Stonewall seeks the Dwarf-Orc out, having received word that he, specifically, is within the walls of the fortress. A veteran of the siege on the fortress as well, though he was only a grunt at the time, he proposes that they drink and catch up. With the idea of drinking making for a tantalizing offer, and one not to turn down --- especially when the drinks are free --- Slab joins him, even winning both a drinking contest and an arm wrestling match. Their actions raise morale for those nearby, and between their interactions thusfar and Slab's chiding that he spends too much time barking orders and not enough time speaking to his men, gains the respect of the War Chief and his men.
In the meantime, Vex remains in the training grounds, having seen Slab's and Duul's respective interactions. With little else to do, he decides to see if the pit has a new fight going on. Of course, being a fighting pit in Dig, a new fight had started right after the previous one. This heated brawl appears to be the result of a dispute between a Half-Orc and a bugbear over who took whose dinner roll that night. The lizardfolk is keen to look out for anyone signaling him out as he is a rare minority race, though the locals seem to care very little about him one way or another, likely assuming him to be a small dragonborn. Comfortable, he seeks out somewhere to sit down and work on his writing, plopping down in front of the ring so that he can watch the fight. This instantly attracts the attention of an irritable goblin, who calls him out for being a nerd, telling him that he must watch or fight, rather than do anything nerdy or bookish. Lured into a fight, he stands and calls the man out on his behavior, challenging him to a battle and striking a notably low blow about his height. While the two take to the ring for a bare-knuckle brawl, Cyrus remains off to the side of the ring, unloading and preparing his medical supplies for the inevitable, especially with Duul handling the potentially concussed orc. Vex and the goblin fight, though the goblin appears to not be the best or most coordinated fighter, first tripping on his shoelaces and getting wailed on and then following up the beating by tossing sand in the lizardfolk's eyes. With the goblin already fighting dirty, Vex pulls out the stops, fighting dirty right back and latching onto the goblin's bicep with his teeth. Likely permanently crippling the man, he takes a whole chunk from the man's arm, hopefully teaching him once and for all not to get cocky or cheat. Of course, this is highly unlikely, proven by how he responds to Cyrus' attempts at healing him and the responses the halfling receives. He's able to at least stabilize the goblin, though he can't regenerate the wound, sewing it as best as he can. Though he should have it amputated, the goblin seems not to care about such a notion, trusting that he will be just fine on his own. Cyrus continues to insist that he has been crippled, telling him to at least seek the healing of a priest to fully mend the wound.

"Pure brutality! That's the sort of blood lust we need! The kingdom wouldn't know what hit 'em if we all could find more people like that." - Nameless NPC #53 to Vex

Several others in the training area come to the perfectly reasonable conclusion that they should now challenge Vex, though, after the first fight and the maiming he dished out, he's far more forgiving with the others --- especially since none of them are so low as to try to cheat or insult him. Vex remains undefeated in the total of four fights that he does that day, including the one against the goblin, a half-orc, a hobgoblin, and three goblins in a trench coat. No breaks were taken in between, though there at least was, thankfully, a medic nearby to patch up any and all wounds sustained during the altercations. The lizardfolk gains a significant amount of respect from those in the training grounds, though he takes a break after these fights to allow others a chance in the ring and recuperate himself.

The Purpose of Summons

Before long, the Warchief calls all those that he summoned together, along with any companions they happened to have brought with them. He thanks them for arriving, especially since they were given some rather short notice for the occasion, and proceeds to brief them on just what, precisely, they've been summoned for. Aiming to protect all of the Western realms, he begins by passing on that their spy network uncovered plots by the Kingdom of Phax. It turns out that the Kingdom is planning an invasion on a massive scale, meaning that Bram's Folly is in desperate need of fortifications, armaments, and soldiers to prevent any attempts at a land approach, as the fortress is nearly a century old by this point. Those summoned, as well as their companions, are welcome to handle these matters as they see fit, though this is expected to be a joint effort between all parties. As if the threat of invasion weren't enough incentive, he does state that the Council is front a large reward as payment for services rendered, as this is also an attempt at political reconciliation or some nonsense that the warchief honestly couldn't give two shits about.

"Either way, we need to smash people, and you are the people to do it." - Warchief Stonewall

He requests that the workers do their best to stay out of the soldier's way, and they will grant them the same courtesy. Additionally, those that specialize in weapons are welcome to the armory, but only as such, and only during day hours. They are allowed entry only to discuss improvements to their weapons with the quartermaster and armorer. From what he's heard, the Kingdom has especially made advancements in artillery, firearms, and cannons, so he is hoping that they can at least rival their incoming enemies. The warchief then dismisses everyone to proceed on to their work, leaving them to it.
With the briefing over, Lavug makes his way to the armory before all else, meeting with the Bugbear quartermaster taking stock of the armory. He greets him, inquiring if he's there to look at the weapons and see what he could do to improve the available stock, which Lavug confirms. The bugbear lets him know that they already have some supplies inbound, including construction supplies, and that Lavug may request anything that he might need for the potential upgrades. Lavug puts his focus first on confirming that all of the firearms are in working condition, ensuring that they won't blow up on their users, finding out quickly that they have been treated poorly and not properly maintained. This makes his first order of business to give the weapons their much-needed TLC. A dwarf catches him tending to the firearms, and comments on him being a small arms expert, to which he confirms. The dwarf asks him if he's figured out how to make the weapons fire more than a single shot before needing to reload. Lavug tells him that the very thing is something that he has been trying to work on for himself, and the orc offers to teach him how to do exactly that. As it turns out, this man is one of the ones that worked on the weapons for the caravan Lavug encountered previously, giving him brief explanations of the mechanisms required, not wishing to divulge too much, even with Lavug's persistence.

"I appreciate your spirit, but ya know --- trade secrets and all. You wouldn't get it unless it was over my dead body." - Bendek, small arms engineer dwarven Ghizian

With several hours having passed, lights out is called for the soldiers, though the party still has free reign without the aforementioned areas. Duul makes sure to check if there is anyone available magically, though there appear to only be artificers and medics present at the fortress. With what they do know of local fame, Slab is able to recognize a few of the other engineers, though Duul and Lavug lack the insight. As it turns out, the dwarf Lavug spoke to earlier was Bendek, a small arms specialist, known for his improvements on such, including the multi-shot rifles Lavug and Ghozun had seen previously. Uninterested in socializing with anyone further, the party prepares to sleep, with Duul returning from his reunion with Grug, whose shift is now starting.

Murder Most Foul

Although the night appears to pass without incident, the morning brings with it chaos. The guards are in an uproar, and it doesn't take long for the party to find out the cause; multiple murders had taken place that night and they have no idea who the killer, or killers, might be. With the Clue session initiated, the party gets to watch the disorganization of the soldiers running around like chickens with their heads cut off while the higher-ups work to reestablish order. Amidst this, the party comes to learn that Duul is now down a family member, with one of the murder victims being Grug and another being Bendek; the rest of the victims were various guards that had been on shift that night. This puts the entire fortress on lockdown as they try to find the one, or ones, responsible.
From what the party is able to learn, the dwarf appeared to have his throat slit; one of the guards, a hobgoblin, appeared to have been shot with a poisoned arrow; and Grog appeared to have simply passed over dead, with no obvious wounds, as though he simply passed in his sleep. Cyrus, curious and confused, decides to take a look at Grog to try to determine what happened, examining the body to find a small incision point around the orc's neck, as though it had been pierced with a small needle. Unable to interrogate anyone that might have seen the incident, as everyone that was on shift that night was killed, the party finds themselves with no obvious suspects or leads for the murders; the morning shift found the bodies and started the ruckus that everyone else woke up to. Before they can investigate further, the Warchief comes over and asks who gave them permission to touch the body, to which Cyrus informs him of the puncture wound, and that it was likely the cause of some sort of poison or a proper piercing in just the right place to cause his death.

"Excuse me, sir, do you know anything about the Painted-Hide death rites?" - Duul

The war chief hesitates, and Duul states that after any Painted-Hide's death, there is a twelve hour grace period, at most, in order to determine their cause of death before they can be allowed in the great halls of the afterlife as part of their spiritual beliefs; he states that he has signed Cyrus off to preform these rites. He informs them that he is Grug's cousin, whom Stonewall is aware of being the black sheep of the family, noting his size and suddenly understanding more just why that is the case. He allows them to proceed, though only Duul and Cyrus are allowed near the body. Officially "assigned" to the case, the party sets about on an investigation proper.

Interrogations & Observations:

Cyrus discovers that the dwarf had a personal bag on him that appeared to have rummaged through, and something likely taken from it or his person proper. Looking at the rest of the wounds, he is able to notice that they are all clean, a single quick slash to vital points. By that logic, it seems that none of them saw their attacks coming. This leads Cyrus to preemptively conclude that an assassination might be at work, possibly from the enemy army. Duul states that he needs a report of any and everyone that left the barracks, especially where the sleeping quarters are at, to find anyone that left that would have had that opportunity, as well as at what point these guards had checked in. Cyrus suggests letting the war chief know about the theft, though Duul says to keep it in his own report for now, and they'll inform him at a later time. For now, they should see to anyone that might have personally been acquainted with the dwarf. Despite his entry-level knowledge in the medical field, Duul is able to at least conclude that they cuts are cleaner and more precise than he, himself, has been able to execute so far.
The last that anyone saw the guards before their bodies were discovered was when they relieved the previous shift, and the last check-in was at ten o'clock that night. The shift change would have been at two in the morning. The list Duul receives includes the expected shift changes, as well as the remaining three engineers --- Lavug excluded --- all left and returned to their rooms at various points during the specified time frame. Cyrus and Duul share their findings and suspicions with the rest of the party, and Duul begins assigning his friends sections of the fortress to check out. Himself and Slab are going to check with the guards. Cyrus and Lavug will check with the other engineers to appraise the quality of their weapons as well as to interrogate them. Meanwhile, Vex will go solo to the training guards to keep an eye on and study anyone there, checking their skills and preferred weapons. They do have to be careful of how they go about things, as their investigation, in full, is not officially sanctioned, but they mostly need to appraise tools for surgical precision or high quality, well-kept blades.

The Guards

Duul takes care to mostly woke through casual small talk and banter, though Slab keeps his focus on any potential big gatherings or parties of any sort. Slab finds that most of them trust people from Dig specifically by nature, but they are very suspicious of any and all outsiders.

Kazeqxik

Approaching the trapmaking goblin, known for outfitting hunters and the homes of anyone with the coin to afford him with security systems and traps of his own creation. When Cyrus and Lavug approach, he is tinkering in the area designated as a workshop, with little in his obvious position aside from his clothes, some pouches on them, and an unrolled pouch of tools on the table in front of him. Cyrus introduces himself cheerfully, though doing so startles the goblin, causing his contraption to spring and fire a dart into the ass of a poor innocent bystander on the other side of the room. The goblin is grumpy, somewhat rightfully so, and demands to know why he's being bothered at all. He announces his name and that he's from the capital, here to do his nation proud, all by himself, with his wife and "freeloading offspring" back home. Though he doesn't outright ignore them, he does reiterate that he wants nothing to do with them or socializing and wants to get back to his things, even going so far as been saying, "well, it's been a terrible time for me, so scram," when Cyrus states that it was a pleasure meeting him. Additionally, as they leave, the contraption has been reloaded and a dart flies past Cyrus' head.

Zhar

After dealing with the grumpiest grump, who clearly hates everyone indiscriminately, Lavug and Cyrus interrogate Zhar, a friendly bugbear that is busy analyzing the fortress for weaknesses while eating an apple he was hand-slicing. The bugbear is a construction worker known for doing a lot of work in Dig, especially for homes and fortifications. He expresses sadness for the deaths, mourning especially the losses of their talents. The man inquires about Lavug, as he has little reputation in any circle, even his own --- mainly from his lack of interest in social matters. Pleasantries and small talk are exchanged, as well as a minor amount of interrogation, though Zhar appears to lack any insight on the matters. He does, however, suggest that the motive would be a grudge against the man or the murderer would have to benefit greatly from the victim's death, not apparently commenting when they mention that something appeared to have been stolen from Bendek.

Meruz BoulderThrow

Their next target is not so friendly, clearly unwilling to socialize and preferring to busy herself with her work, suspicious of everyone. She is the young half-orc they'd noticed previously, the daughter of a very prominent artillery designer from Dig, having taken over the business after her father met his untimely death at the hands of an unstable prototype. Her own product is an automatic, self-reloading cannon, and she seemed greatly concerned that people would only cozy up to others in an attempt to get trade secrets. She is an artillerist by trade, very proud and protective of her work. As the creations are not his own, and he is ill-acquainted with anyone else in his field, Lavug is unable to tell if her cannons are real or just for show.

Vex's Investigation

Vex's task is to watch the soldiers as they train throughout the day, investigating for and observing any signs of someone especially talented in dexterity and finesse. Though he spent the entire time the others were interrogating watching them, he found little to be interested in; most of the soldiers are simply run of the mill soldier types, nothing extraordinary about them as a whole. Of note were four soldiers in particular: a goblin that was good with daggers, with talents in dagger throwing; an orc that was good with a bow; and a pair of hobgoblins that were good with blades, dueling each other. With little else to go on, he goes off to report these such findings to Duul and the others.

Tragic Conclusions

Meeting back up together, the party shares the information that they have gathered, trying to figure out for themselves what might have happened. However, not wishing to be too hasty, they eliminate only the goblin soldier as a suspect, and Duul proposes that they bring the information they've gathered to the city's war chief. They do so, and he states that he will take their findings into consideration, though he is off-put by the fact that they gathered such without being asked to investigate. He promises that he will have results by tomorrow, betting his life on the statement. This immediately riles Duul's suspicions, and he recommends that the party sleep outside for the night, away from the others, using his mouse to keep watch in the war chief's tent. With little luck finding a safe place outside to rest, the present party huddles up in a storeroom, with a sleepless Duul observing the war chief's investigations and subsequent assassination during the night. Although Duul could not make out a face through the mouse's eyes, he can tell that the figure was humanoid --- specifically as such, and not goblinoid in nature. The perpetrator was fast, agile, and silent, slipping inside and out in but a moment. Duul sends his mouse to snatch the paperwork that made the war chief seem to come to an epiphany not seconds before his death.

---

Character(s) interacted with

Nameless soldiers & guards of Bram's Folly
Warchief Stonewall (deceased)
Grotrug "Grug" Painted-Hide (deceased)
A now-maimed & crippled unnamed goblin
An unnamed orc
An unnamed hobgoblin
Three unnamed goblins in a trench coat
Bram's Folly's unnamed bugbear quartermaster
Bendek (deceased)

Report Date

29 Mar 2021

Primary Location

Bram's Folly