Late in the evening, Rodrik Grath was making his way back to his room at the Ramblehouse, where he’d been staying since his argument with his father. It didn’t bother him much, since it was a much better place to work on his masterpiece than the Longhouse ever was. Between his brother’s jovial ribbing, his father’s vocal disapproval and his cousin’s inability to understand why it was important, it had truly been difficult to get any work done.
As he rounded the corner, he spotted a figure standing in front of the door to the Ramblehouse. It took him a moment to recognize the man. “Well,” he said cordially, “if it isn’t Ruby’s Magician. You’re up rather late.”
“I was speaking with members of the watch,” Jazier said.
Rodrik wondered why he would be doing that. “My father’s the leader of the patrol,” he said. “If you need help with something, perhaps I can help you?”
“I am searching for my brother,” Jazier answered.
“Me too. Though I think mine went to bed already, so I’m gonna have to wait until morning to ask him to critique my latest draft. But I guess this means I have some time to fix that error I noticed in the fourth stanza. Perhaps we can discuss your brother in the morning as well. After I speak more with Kermit. He has some great ideas.”
Sometime later, in the far end of the night, or perhaps more accurately, early in the morning, there was banging on the door to Lucky Days’ room. “Aww, I was having the best dream,” she said, starting to get up. “Just a moment,” she called out, putting on her boots.
She opened the door to find a hungover halfling and an upset looking man standing there. Before she could speak, Valbrand opened the door to the room he and Kermit shared.
He took one look at the dark expression on Kurst’s face and scowled. “I do not know what is going on,” the large man said, “but I will grab my gear and I will help you slay whatever foe has raised its head.” It was the least he could do. The people of the town had been generous with their hospitality, after all.
As Valbrand returned to his room, Kurst spoke to Lucky Days. “We’re getting everyone up. We need to question everyone,” he said, his voice quavering.
“What’s wrong?” Lucky Days asked, just wanting to give the poor man a reassuring pat on the head.
“It’s my brother,” Kurst answered. “They s-say he’s killed himself.” He shook his head. “But he wouldn’t do that. Please, just, come outside in ten minutes so we can get to the bottom of this. I need to go wake everyone else.”
“I’ll be there,” Lucky Days promised.
At her post, Gwen heard footsteps on the ground behind her. “Omast, you really need to learn to walk more quietly,” she said, not even turning. “What are you doing here? Your shift isn’t for two more hours.”
“Gwen, I-” the guardsman said, his voice cracking.
Alarmed by the emotion in his voice, Gwen turned to face Omast, and spotted Qumeel there as well. “I’m so sorry to be the one to have to tell you this but-”
“What’s happened?” she asked, urgency in her voice. The last time someone had approached her like this was the day her mother had died. “Omast! TELL ME WHAT HAS HAPPENED!” she said, grabbing the front of the man’s leather armor. But the guardsman was sobbing, unable to answer.
“Calm down, child,” Qumeel said. “I am not sure precisely what has transpired, but they say that your cousin has taken his own life. The guardsman and I are here to relieve you so you can attend to affairs.”
Her cousin? Dead? Oh no. Erastil help her, this couldn’t be happening again. “Where is my uncle?” she demanded. “I have to go to him.”
“They are at the local inn,” Qumeel said. “Interrogating his fellow tenants.”
His fellow tenants? But wait, that would mean… “Rodrik?” she asked softly. That didn’t make sense. Not that it would have made sense had it been Kurst, but it made even less sense
“That is what I have been told,” Qumeel answered as Omast just sobbed again.
“I… have to go,” Gwen said, slinging her rifle over her shoulder. “Thank you for relieving me.” She then began running to the Ramblehouse, her half-elven eyes allowing her to see the streets just fine in the rays of the coming dawn, even despite the tears dripping from them.
When she arrived on the street outside of the Ramblehouse, she found Jagrin Grath interrogating Cham. “I do not want excuses!” he said, grabbing the front of the halfling’s shirt. “I want answers! TELL ME HOW MY SON DIED WHEN YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE WATCHING HIM!”
“Uncle!” Gwen said, pulling his arm away from the halfling. He wasn’t actually her uncle, being her mother’s cousin, after all, but they had determined long ago that it was the most proper thing to call him.
He spun on her, a wild look in his eyes, but regained his composure upon seeing the fearful expression on Gwen’s face. “Sorry,” he said, pain in his eyes, which were barely holding back tears. “I… sorry to you too, Cham. I just want to know what happened to my son.”
Gwen hugged him. “I’ll look into it. Please, take some time. The town needs you at your best, and this isn’t helping. Please, someone needs to tend to Rodrik and make arrangements.”
He nodded. “Thanks. Please tell me if you find anything. Cham, please, she’ll need your registry.”
The halfling nodded. “She’ll have it, and any other help I can provide.”
“Thank you,” he said, leaving to go tend to the corpse of his son.
While that drama unfolded, Kurst had already begun interrogating the tenants of the Ramblehouse. “Anything you can tell me might be helpful,” he told the group. “When was the last time you saw him?” he asked.
“At the party,” Valbrand said. Kermit nodded in agreement.
“I’ve been in my room sleeping since that girl brought me here,” Lucky Days said.
“I saw him late last night, as I was returning here,” Jazier said. “Hours after the party. He said he was planning on working on his ‘masterpiece’, if that helps. Tell me, how did he die?”
“You were at the party, so you witnessed the instructional part of the ceremony, right?” Kurst asked. The others nodded. Kurst pulled a hopeknife from his coat. “They found this with my brother. His arteries had been cut, just as we’re instructed. But I know he wouldn’t have done that. He wasn’t just working on his masterpiece. He was in love. They were to be married.”
“Has anyone informed his betrothed?” Kermit asked.
“Yes, though it wasn’t me,” Kurst revealed. “My father has forbidden me from speaking with Rodrik’s beloved. He thinks that she filled his head with nonsense and worries that she’d do the same to me. But he can’t forbid you from going to see her.” He wrapped up the hopeknife and handed it to the closest person, Lucky Days. “Please, speak with Brinya. She may know something. If nothing else, if that was the hopeknife he carried, she should be able to identify it, as the two of them exchanged hopeknives as is custom for betrothed around here.”
“Okay,” Lucky Days said.
“Your brother was a warrior, and a warrior deserves a full investigation into his death,” Valbrand agreed.
“We will determine the truth,” Kermit added.
“I must decline,” Jazier said. “I am cursed, and it is doubtful any good can come of my involvement in your investigation.”
“Please,” pleaded Kurst. “I fear we will need all the help we can get.”
“Then perhaps there is another lead I can speak with? I do not wish to risk exposing one who has lost her betrothed to my curse.
Kurst nodded. “Speak to Omast Frum, then. He knew my brother well and may have more information. And thank you, to the rest of you.”
Gwen continued her investigation, first questioning Cham. “Who had a key to his room?”
“Only Rodrik,” Cham answered. “And my master key, of course.”
“Where do you keep your master key?”
“On my person at all times.”
“And you still have it?”
Cham patted her chest, feeling the key resting on the same chain that held her hopeknife. “It’s still here,” she said.
Gwen nodded. “Good. Show me to his room. I want to look around. And while I do that, I need you to make me a list of everyone in your registry.”
Up in the room, Gwen did a methodical and thorough search. One of the desk drawers contained a false bottom, but there was nothing in the secret compartment, nor indication that it had been used recently. From there, she began searching around the bed. There, she found something interesting.
“What’s this?” she asked herself as she pulled out a scrap of paper stuck between the bed and the wall. Inspecting it, she was surprised. “A receipt for a new hopeknife? Why would he need one of those? And why would it be engraved ‘To Rodrik, my love’? What’s going on here?”
Once she was sure she’d found everything of value to the investigation, she returned downstairs. “I have that list,” Cham said. “Though I’m afraid it won’t help much.”
“Why?” Gwen asked.
“Your cousin is already talking to most of my new tenants,” she said.
“Most?” Gwen asked suspiciously.
“There might be one entry with a missing name.”
“Why wouldn’t you have taken his name? Can you at least tell me what he looked like?”
“I’m sorry,” the halfling said. The look on her face told Gwen that the woman seriously regretted drinking that final drink. “If it helps, I think he’s already gone. His key is back up here.”
“Give me the list anyway. And don’t let anyone into that room. I may want to look around in there if these other leads don’t explain what happened.” She went outside and called Kurst over. “Something isn’t right here,” she said, explaining her findings to her cousin.
“I agree. But Father wants me to help him with Rodrik, so I can’t look into it. Please, cousin, I’ve asked those three to talk to Brinya. Please go with them? I think I can trust them, but I know I can trust you.”
“Of course,” she answered. “I wanted to go speak with her anyway.” She wasn’t overly fond of the half-orc – or any half-orc, for that matter – but she had done her best to respect Rodrik’s decision. “And where is the wizard going?” she asked.
“He’s gonna go speak with Omast. Any idea where to find him?”
“He relieved me this morning. He should still be there with Qumeel.”
“Good. I’ll tell Jazier where to look, then. And thanks, cousin,” he said, giving her a hug.
“We’ll find whoever did this,” she agreed, returning his embrace.
She approached the strange group and was greeted by Valbrand. “There you are, girl. Come to continue our conversation from the other day?”
Gwen’s eyes narrowed. “I will shoot you,” she said.
“Not a morning person, I see,” the large man said. “I will try again later. Perhaps in the evening, with a drink in your hand.”
She didn’t respond, instead turning to Lucky Days and Kermit. “Kurst asked me to help you find Brinya. Come on, the boarding house where she lives is not far from here.”
Kermit turned to the man in the pelican suit. “Glenn, you stay here.” The man nodded and went back up to their room to sleep some more.
As they walked, Lucky Days put her hand on Gwen’s shoulder. “How are you doing?” she asked sympathetically.
“I’m focusing on the investigation,” Gwen answered. It was the only thing holding her together. There would be time for grief once everything was sorted out.
Lucky Days, not to be put off of making a friend by a terse answer, decided to change the subject. “That’s a nice gun,” she said. “Does it have a name?”
“No.”
“Oh. Coach gave me this,” Lucky Days said, gesturing with her naginata. “He told me to call her Sakura-chan. I’m not sure why.”
Valbrand laughed and nudged Kermit. “That sounds like something Rodd would do.”
“OH!” Lucky Days said in realization. “That’s right! You’re obviously Mister Kermit, and you must be Mister Valbrand! I wanted to ask if you knew where Coach is. He told me to meet up with you two here and he’d come later.”
“Coach?” Valbrand asked.
“Rodd Rigez,” she said, having learned from already having this conversation.
“Oh. Yeah, I have no idea where he is. He disappears and returns from time to time. He’ll show up eventually.”
They walked the rest of the way to the boardinghouse in silence. When they arrived, they found two women sitting on the patio. One, a half orc, was crying, while the other was trying to console her. “Everything’s going to be okay,” the second woman, a human named Karna, was saying. “The militia will sort it out. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s not your fault.”
Her mane of striking crimson hair was pulled back in a ponytail, framing the lone lock of bright blue hair at the front. Gwen wasn’t certain, but she was pretty sure the woman dyed her hair, since those colors were not normal on the head of a human.
“Why would anyone think it was Brinya’s fault?” Gwen asked.
The half-orc looked up. “Gwen… your uncle blamed me for Rodrik’s poetry. You know he’s going to say it’s my fault somehow. You know he’ll say I killed Rodrik!”
“Why would he think that?” Kermit asked.
“We’d exchanged hopeknives,” Brinya explained. “But he lost mine. I…” she sobbed. “I told him that I didn’t want to see him again until he found it! And now he’s dead. What if it was my fault? How could I live with myself?”
“Oh!” Lucky Days exclaimed. “That’s not a problem. He found your knife, so it’s all fine.” She pulled out the knife Kurst had given her. “See?”
“That’s not mine,” Brinya said, her face serious. “There’s no engraving, and this knife is obviously of poor quality, or at least unfinished. There’s no way Sara would have let something so shoddy out of her shop.”
“Sara?” Lucky Days asked.
“Sara Morninghawk,” Gwen explained. “The town’s blacksmith. Although…” she pulled the receipt from her coat. “I think he had ordered a replacement,” she said, showing Brinya the receipt. “Maybe he had picked up the unfinished knife to look at it?”
“Oh, Rodrik!” Brinya wailed, burying her face in Karna’s shoulder.
Karna hugged her friend. “I don’t think she knows anything more,” she said. “You and your friends should continue your investigation elsewhere.”
“They’re outsiders that Kurst asked to look into it,” Gwen said. She suspected that he hoped that these people weren’t involved with the crime, having had no reason to kill Rodrik. Either way, they were tasked with the investigation, and since Karna was an outsider herself – having only arrived a few weeks prior – Gwen wasn’t terribly happy with the woman in the dingy white robes trying to tell them what to do.
“Well, whoever they are, please give Brinya time to grieve. If you’re looking for more information, maybe check out the Sanctuary. Rodrik spent a lot of time there. He said he was ‘looking for his muse’.”
Lucky Days nodded approvingly. “Gods are important. Kurgess gives me strength.”
“Yes, the god of champions,” Karna said. “A fine choice.” A curiosity struck her. “Tell me, small one, what god do you and your people worship?” she asked Kermit.
“I follow the faith of Ng, the hooded one.” That surprised Karna. Ng wasn’t a god, exactly. Instead he was one of the fey Eldest, divine beings who ruled the First World.
Brinya sniffed. “You might also talk to Katrezra. If anyone knows what evils forced Rodrik’s hand, he would.”
Katrezra? Gwen knew that name and her suspicions rose.
Just what was another half-orc doing involved in this?
0 Comments