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Old 11-18-2018, 05:24 AM   #12
coronatiger
 
Join Date: Apr 2018
Location: Trondheim, Norway
Default Re: Campaign Log: Chaotic Pioneering

Session 2 (continued):

Thoughts on May 20th

After a brief report to the baker and some buns for breakfast, we all met up with Lord Fidel and the villager who had come to report the crime. They filled us in on the road.

Two boys in their late teens had disappeared from their beds on the 15th, and was found floating in a pond near the hamlet two days later.

It was a dull trip back to the same farm we had been to before. Lady Karita and Lord Fidel talked about things only nobles could care about, Kine grumbled about not having been able to sell all the food she had brought to market, and Magnar kept to himself, apparently not too interested in human or high human nobility. The villager was buried among the cargo on Kine’s wagon. Thankfully, I had Olivia to talk to.

We’re spending the night here at the farm. Lord Fidel has informed us that it is unlawful to turn away travelers who wish to spend the night, and that no farm can be established more than one day’s travel from any other.


Thoughts on May 21st

After yet another uneventful day of traveling, we enter the hamlet in the afternoon, where we are met by the mayor. We’ll be staying in his house while we’re here. He tells us about the ten households here: There’s a dwarf woodcutter couple with their children, a group of boys who came out here from the city a few years ago and a family whose son is slightly deformed and dim-witted (he is being picked on by the rest of the children, which could be a motive for murder, I guess). Then there’s the mayor’s household. He has a few servants as well as his family under his roof. There’s an elderly couple living alone, a drunkard with his wife and teenage daughter, the village beauty. I hope she’s not the jealous type. Let’s see, who else … Oh, the mayor mentioned a man who has some sort of disorder, causing twitches and tics and other unnerving behavior. The rest of the villagers seemed pretty normal to me, from the mayor’s description. We learn that the two dead boys didn’t have any obvious wounds on them, and that another boy disappeared three days ago. Two of the boys were from the boy house, the third was next door neighbor to the drunkard.

When Kine and Magnar started talking about keeping watch during the night, Lady Karita excused herself and went to bed. Olivia and I joined the conversation. We agreed that Magnar should take the second watch, since that’s when it’s the darkest. He, like all dwarves, can see in the dark. Oops. Kine, with good night vision takes the first watch, and Olivia and I share the third, when it’s getting lighter.

I went to fetch the rope from my saddlebags, intending to tie it to the chimney so that the others can climb up to the impromptu watch post on the mayor’s roof. When I came back, Kine was up there already. I should have guessed, her being a cat and all. I tossed the rope up to her and went to bed. Olivia, Kine, Lady Karita and I are sharing a room. Olivia and I tried to do our thing silently, so as not to wake the lady.


Thoughts on May 22nd

Magnar wasn’t particularly quiet when he came to wake us for our watch, so I suspect Lady Karita had words with him this morning. Nothing happened while we sat on the roof.

After breakfast, Lord Fidel told us he was going to take a chair out on the yard to observe. The rest of us talked about doing some sleuthing, and he reminded us of our duty as bodyguards. I thought this was a good opportunity to get some practice done. I mean … He was going to observe, and wanted some of us nearby. I got my rope, noticing that Kine isn’t very good with knots, but the knot held during the night, and that’s what’s important, but I decided to tie it myself from now on. I don’t want to take any chances when Olivia is concerned. She’s an ok climber, but needs the rope to get up to the roof.

So, while Magnar, Olivia and Lord Fidel watched me do target practice while balancing on the rope (I needed to be armed), Lady Karita and Kine went over to the pond at the edge of the forest to see if they could find any clues. After the animal tracking we did last week, we discovered that they were the most observant among us. They returned with a scrap of cloth with some blood on it and told us that they had found what they believed to be drag marks through the reeds. They had tried to follow the tracks into the woods, but without luck. We did a bit of speculation, and thought that either, the bodies had been placed in the pond to terrify the villagers, or, the murderer had unsuccessfully tried to weigh down the corpses with stones.

I suggested that I should talk to the boys at the boy house when they’d finished work. Magnar raised the question of who should come with me, and who should stay with Lord Fidel, but Lady Karita overruled him and said it would be best if I went alone. Boys of that age should be easy to handle for someone with my “talents”.

People were still working in the fields, so I got back on the rope while Kine and Magnar went to look for a third corpse on the bottom of the pond. I suspected that some undressing would be done, so it’s just as well that I stayed in the village, lest my urges be triggered. They returned a couple of hours later, telling us they had found no corpse, but there were a couple of rocks at the bottom of the otherwise mud-bottomed pond, so that might strengthen our second hypothesis.

I went over to the boy house when they’d returned. They were playing a game which consisted of throwing pebbles at a stick, and I asked if I could play too, intending to make a soft approach to the subject of murder. They were more than happy to let me join them; I may have said something about having a weakness for playing with sticks.

When I returned to the others, I could tell them that the two boys who had disappeared had vanished at night, while the rest of them were sleeping, and that one of them had claimed to have something going on with the village beauty. They both had taken part in tormenting the dim-witted kid.

Everyone, including Lord Fidel, went down to the house where the village beauty lived, and Lady Karita knocked on the door while the rest of us stayed back a bit, close enough to hear and see (and be seen), but far enough away that we wouldn’t be too intimidating.

The father of the house opened the door. When Lady Karita asked if she could talk to his wife and daughter, he became rude and belligerent, saying that he didn’t take orders from no mere woman. He’d obviously been at the bottle. Magnar approached him, and a short tussle ensued, during which Magnar slammed the door in his face, and after the man had managed to trip himself, Magnar sat down on him, and that was that. Lord Fidel ruled that the man was to be tied to a tree in the middle of the village until our investigation was concluded. I spoke up, concerned for the man’s safety, him having to stay outside (and tied up!) during the hours of darkness, but Lord Fidel didn’t budge. As a commoner, I didn’t have any say in the matter. I believe he might have listened to Lady Karita, since her family is one of the most powerful ones in the country, but she had clearly been severely offended, and said nothing.

Talking to his wife and daughter didn’t give us much information, except they both denied that the girl had been involved in any way with the dead boy. I suspect they may be lying, but only to prevent us to think incorrectly that they had anything to do with the crime. It’ll be wise to talk to some of the other villagers about it later.
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Character sheet: Google Drive link (See this thread for details.)

Campaign logs: Chaotic Pioneering / Confessions of a Forked Tongue
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