Act 5 - Revenge of the Kobold King

[Vardaen]

"Sure thing, no problem." The man who runs the house looks at Drak and Braedon, "New to town? Need a room?" When they confirm that they don't he shrugs, "If you do, I have space I'm sure." He walks you back to the door, "If that's all then?"

[Trogdor]

"I think that's all," Celevan says with a questioning look at the others. "And thank you very much. You've been helpful and cooperative."

[Muskrat]

"Yes, that will be all," says Dreams, then makes a formal bow. "Thank you for your help."

Once they are out earshot of Adren or any of his borders, Dreams says to the others, "Well, I guess our best hope now is to do a pass around the edge of the town and see if we can pick up any tracks. But how far do we want to pursue this? We know the emissary of the Winter God is coming to town in a less than a week to try to persuade the people here to be loyal to her and we should be here for that, to try to argue with her--and stop her forces if they don't like the answer they get. I hate to see a murderer get away, but that seems to have greater implications for the town's well-being than Paday's death."

[Eilandor]

Braedon nods at Dream's suggestion of picking up any fleeing tracks, "Aela and I can look around for tracks, particularly those of a man and woman together. If found, I did prepare in my morning meditation a tracking spell that could identify if the tracks were made by who we seek."

[Vardaen]

Braedon offers to hunt for tracks, he and Aela his wolf head to the edge of town to the south and realize this isn't going to be an easy task. Not only has it been half a day or more since they suspect she left, but its been snowing out. Its also the main way in and out of Falcon's Hollow if you are heading south and there is some traffic this way, kids play in the snow, and its generally a very large area to scout for a pair of foot prints that might be a man and a woman's together.

He spends an hour out there trying to sort out tracks, Aela is sniffing the land for scents, any scents even the perfume of the Rogue Lady or the tobbaco smoke from the Black Dog, but the wolf comes up empty. Eventually Braedon thinks maybe he's found a pair of prints that could be a man and a woman. So he kneels before them, and focuses on the tracks, a hand is laid down into the print and he closes his eyes to read the track. A flash of a woman comes over his mind's eye. She's running, holding a bundle of something, wrapped tightly held to her bosom. A flash of her face, and her raven black hair is visible. Then a look at the bundle, a babe, with a large deformed birthmark on its face. The power of his meditation fades, raising only more questions but answering one -- that was not Jada's foot print. He's forced to give up, there is no way he's going to find the tracks he's looking for; not now.

GM

I had you roll (secret) and use Residual Tracking.

Sheet updated.


Your leads are about all dried up.

[Trogdor]

"So there we have it," Celevan says. "They're gone and we're not likely to find them." He shakes his head. "Anyone have any other ideas for rooting out the person behind all of this?"

[Grimbold]

***elswhere***
Torias goes to the sheriff to take care Payday is not buried yet. He will need the body for his spell tomorrow.

[Vardaen]

Torias makes sure the body isn't buried yet today. Deldrin informs him that the gravedigger will have to be called, and in this weather it will take a good long while to get the corpse put in the frozen ground. So Payday will remain available for a spell for a bit.

The group seems to be at the end of the investigation, and so meets back up at the house. Workers are finishing up the final few days of work and furniture is being moved in little by little as well. Gathered up once more the group plans their next move.

GM

What's our next scene? Torias with Payday tomorrow? Then wait for the Winter Representative to show?

I think the chapter end will end with Payday's little corpse talk.

[AdamDaBomb11]

"So, what do we do now?" Drak asks, feeling a little out of his niche with the investigation.

[Muskrat]

"I don't think there's much we can do, other than remain alert for any new clues that might come our way," says Dreams, "but for now, it looks like whoever was behind Payday's murder will get away with it." Her voice is dark and depressed. "In any case, I fear the coming of the Winter God's representative will be a bigger threat to this town than the murderer."

Explaining what she is talking about to the new-comers, "When we were traveling through the Cold Marrow, we were attacked by frostlings in the middle of a blizzard. It's not clear we would have come out alive--but the woman who commanded them agreed to call them off, on one condition. She speaks for the Winter God and wanted a chance to come here and persuade Falcon's Hollow to submit to the Winter God to be spared the wrath of the coming winter. We agreed, since it seemed right that the town should decide its own fate. But that does not mean we cannot speak to people in the town and help them see the folly of submitting to an evil god not known for keeping his bargains. And Kreed may seek to make that decision on his own, without letting the town as a whole decide." She looks to Celevan and Torias to see if she has forgotten anything important.

OOC

I'm going from memory here, so I may have gotten some of the details of the event wrong.

Dreams doesn't use Mulcarn's name because of the (real world) belief that to use the name of a powerful entity like a god can draw that entity's attention. The ancient Greeks, for instance, avoided using Hades' name. It seems appropriate to a fantasy setting where such entities are all too real.