Another tool used in the crafting of literary works is the Red Herring.  In its basic form, it’s a clue that leads in the wrong direction.  Spotting them can be easy or difficult, depending on how you use other contextual clues.  Was the man cheating on his wife a clue to why he was murdered, or was it simply extraneous information that will lead you to look at the wrong suspect?

You have to be careful, however, when deciding what’s important and what’s a red herring.  Perhaps what you’re looking at isn’t so useless a clue as you suspected.  Perhaps you’re just lacking context to put it into the proper perspective.

Let’s take a second look at the man referenced above.  If you were to look into the most obvious path the clue leads you down, the possibility that his wife murdered him, you might find yourself drawn off course by the red herring.  But what about the other possibilities that it suggests?  Perhaps his girlfriend, upset that he refused to leave his wife, was the culprit?  Or maybe his girlfriend has a husband of her own and the man was killed in a fit of jealousy by the girlfriend’s husband?

Both are perfectly plausible possibilities that are suggested by the revelation of the man’s affair, but are far too easily overlooked by someone dismissing the clue after a quick check of the circumstances.  And that’s before you consider other possibilities, such as the man being killed in a struggle with the person who discovered his affair and is blackmailing him.

That’s why those contextual clues are so important.  When you find a man who is ritualistically murdered who happens to be stealing from his boss, that second revelation might seem like a red herring. Why would the man have been ritualistically murdered?  Why not just kill him in a more standard way?  Classic red herring.  Of course it wasn’t the boss.  It looks too obvious.  Of course, even then, there’s the possibility that the killing is unrelated to other similar murders and the boss was using a copycat to hide his own actions as being those of a serial killer.  It makes for an excellent twist.  Still, it feels like a red herring.

However, when you come back to it after examining other clues, maybe the fact that he was stealing from his boss isn’t so unimportant a clue after all.  Maybe it was a clue to the killer’s motive, but not in the way you expected at first glance.  You just had to look at it from a different angle.  You just have to see it through a lens of the contextual clues provided by the other murders. 

What does a man who is stealing from his boss have in common with a farmer who has a hoard of silver coins hidden in a chest in his closet?  How about with some local thieves and ne’er do wells? 

To paraphrase the words of Auric Goldfinger:  One embezzler is happenstance.  An embezzler and some thieves is coincidence.  An embezzler, some thieves and a farmer hoarding silver far beyond what he would normally have is enemy action.

Have you spotted the overlap, the unifying thread that binds these three murders?  What if I were to throw in the fatal bloodletting of a rich attorney?  No, that one didn’t happen, but it’s a reference to a movie.  Okay, how about the words of a scholar who believes that the sihedron symbol represents the Seven Deadly Sins?  I’ll admit, I didn’t put these clues together right away, but it’s obvious now that I see it.

These people were guilty of the sin of Greed.  But why kill greedy people?  For that answer, we would need another contextual clue. 

We had already encountered one runewell in the catacombs under Sandpoint.  What if someone was trying to fuel the awakening of another runewell?  But why?  Think about it.  The runewell we encountered, which I suspect to be related to Wrath, was being used to empower the creation of an army of sinspawn.  So what would the logical purpose for awakening a runewell of Greed?

Wealth seems like a good possibility.  A vault leading to vast riches that could only be opened by someone controlling a runewell of Greed seems like an excellent motive for murder.  Based on what little I know of Thassilon, it seems like tying a vault to a runewell would be something they might do.

Even with three clues, I didn’t spot the connection right away.  If I had, how many people might have been saved who weren’t?  I’m no detective.  But apparently my companions and I would have to do.  May the Lord have mercy upon those poor, unfortunate souls who rely upon us.  

Poor unfortunate souls.  It’s sad, but true.

Night was falling when we reached the Sanatorium, which is just what I was hoping wouldn’t happen.  We banged on the front door.  I shouted “Sanctuary!” in my best Quasimodo voice., which was yet another reference none of my companions got.  Either no one heard us, or no one cared.  So, since we’re a roving band of murder hobos… I mean, “adventurers”, Geo picked the lock and we made our way inside.

As we entered, we immediately discovered that all the floors creaked.  I guess that’s not a big deal.  I mean, we had broken in to speak with the owner as duly appointed members of the law.  It’s not like we had to sneak.

But come on.  You and I both know that there had to be some kind of shenanigans going on here.  I was just going to be happy if it didn’t turn out to be a Lovecraftian cult.  With my luck, I suspected that we were probably going to be dealing with a crazy doctor with a drill.  I made a mental note not to drink anything the owner gave us.

Geo went through the reception area and found what appeared to be a bedroom.  Inside the headboard was a locked coffer, which we promptly opened in case it held clues, which it didn’t.  But it’s the thought that counts.  We opted not to take the money, since Herr Doctor Habe – I’m calling him that because I expected enough human rights violations to summon the ghost of Mengele –  had not yet given us a reason to feel justified in confiscating his valuables.  We only do that after we arrest someone. 

I never said I was a good cop.  Or even a cop, really.  At best, we were outside consultants.

We made our way into a common room.  As we crept along, I could have sworn I heard the floors saying, in their creaking manner, “I’m going to kill you”.  I need a vacation.  There were three doors on a single wall, so we opted to check all three doors at once. 

Lenn got his door open first and said, in a voice far too loud, “Supplies!”  If a group of Asians had come out followed by Weird Al, I was leaving.  Thankfully, it was just full of mops and nails and such.

Geo and Aurora opened their doors at about the same time.  Geo quickly and quietly closed his, but Aurora held up her hand to indicate that something was amiss.  I then heard her say, “Greetings.  I apologize for waking you, but we need to speak with your boss.”

From the room, I heard a man’s voice.  “GURNAK!  WHY WEREN’T YOU ON PATROL?!”  I then saw a tiefling, who actually kinda looked like Quasimodo, now that I think about it, lunge at Aurora with a sword.  Her armor prevented any injury and Lenn rushed over and grabbed him. 

I motioned at the door Geo had just closed, and he grabbed the knob, holding it tight.  While he struggled with the occupant within, Aurora and I pummeled the other one into unconsciousness while Lenn held him, since he didn’t seem keen on talking like a rational human being. 

Lenn rushed over to help Geo hold the door, dropping the unconscious tiefling to the floor with a hard thud.  I told Geo to let the door open with the next big pull.  Guessing at my intentions, he did one better.  Instead of pulling or letting go, he pushed inward.  Gurnak fell to the floor hard.

Meanwhile, I heard Paulie shout, “TIME TO GET HIGH!” in a voice reminiscent of the marshmallow people.  You know the ones.  If not, your neighbor in the dorms was nothing like mine.  Also, Paulie burst into flames.

Now, I don’t mean that he was agitated.  It’s not an expression.  I mean, he was literally on fire.  It’s a miracle that the floorboards didn’t catch as well. 

One problem at a time.  I motioned for Aurora to keep an eye on Paulie while I dealt with Gurnak.  I wiggled my fingers, spoke a few words and, like usual, the magic happened.  Except this wasn’t the kind of magic you worked on the ladies, unless you were a horrible individual.  No, this was a spell I keep prepared to escape angry fathers.  It makes them want to trust you, which makes it much easier to lie my way out of things.  Or at least convince them to let me escape unharmed.

You could see immediately on Gurnak’s face that it was successful.  He looked at me with a bit of trust, but also confusion.  “Sorry for the commotion, buddy.  We sent ahead a messenger.  You should have been expecting us.”

“No messenger came.”

“My apologies, Gurnak.  Look, we need to speak to the owner of this place about a recent arrival.  Can you take us to him?”

“Nonono.  The master will be displeased if we disturb him.  He’ll beat me.”

“Ah, well we can’t have that.  What if you just tell us where he is and we go to him ourselves?”

“Supposed to be on patrol.  If I let someone get by me, he’ll beat me.  He’s upstairs, but you can’t go see him.  Please, he’ll beat me so.”

“Oh dear.  Well, we can’t have that.  Well, we could always tell him that we knocked you out.  He can’t blame you for being overwhelmed by a large group of us.”

“No.  He’ll know I’m lying.  Please, just leave and come back tomorrow.”

I gave Geo a look and he immediately caught my meaning.  “You know,” I said, pausing to make a show of it and give Geo the distraction he needed to get behind the tiefling.  “It doesn’t have to be a lie.”

He tried to say “What do you mean?”, but he only got as far as “Wha-!” as Geo grabbed him from behind with a tentacle.  As I’ve learned from a Michael Westen voice over, in a weakened state, you want to avoid pressure to your carotid artery.  It blocks the blood flow to your brain and you’ll black out in about four seconds.  When those four seconds involve being in contact with one of Geo’s creepy ass tentacles, well, then that’s something you REALLY want to avoid.

Gurnak hit the floor and we turned our attention to Paulie.  He had the fire under control at this point, so we asked him what was going on.  “This is pretty stupid!  I’m bored!”

“By all means, let’s get moving again.”  We could investigate whatever the hell was going on with him later.  For now, we would just have to keep an eye on him.  It worries me a bit that I didn’t freak out at what was going on.  Has my definition of normal gotten so skewed that this was okay to me?

I do have a theory about Paulie.  Unfortunately, its premise starts with an unknown, so I can’t say I like the theory.  But at least I have one.  You see, it’s clear that his magic stems from a divine source.  Around here, they call people like him oracles.  They don’t study in monasteries nor do they spend their days praying to a god for guidance.  Well, maybe some do, but it doesn’t seem to be a requirement.  A deity simply decides they need something done and gives someone the power to do it.  This usually also manifests some kind of detrimental side effect:  the oracle’s curse.

I haven’t been able to figure out what deity has chosen him, but what if it’s more than one?  What if this has left him susceptible to mind altering affects, like those of the local runewells?  Would that mean that these apparent personality shifts are related to whatever runewell is putting out the strongest ambient mindwaves or whatever?

We went to one of the doors across the room, and it was locked.  Geo tried picking the lock, but it was beyond his skill.  So Paulie lit it on fire and Lenn kicked it down.  They made an awful racket doing so.  And, naturally, it wasn’t the way we had planned to go.  The stairs behind it led down.  As you all know, standard procedure in a haunted house is to go to the attic first, then the basement.  A sanatorium with a patient infected with ghoul fever likely would work the same.  So we needed to go upstairs.

I set a patch of caltrops by the door and we headed to the other door on that wall.  It was unlocked and the stairs led up.  Now we were getting somewhere.  Geo went first to scout ahead.

He hadn’t been gone more than a minute before I heard incoherent babbling from upstairs.  Two voices, and they were being loud about it.  The rest of us followed and found Geo giving some food to a pair of patients locked in cells.  The food had calmed them down quite a bit.  The closest was a giant of a man, almost as big as Lenn and appeared to be older than feudalism.  The further one appeared to be blind.  Both were calmly munching on what Geo had given them.

A few moments later, we heard the sound of the doorknob turning across the room.  I pulled out a scroll from my pack blindly, managing to get a good one.  When the door opened and a were-rat stood before us, I cast the spell immediately.  His eyes closed and he crashed to the floor, asleep.  The giant patient also passed out where he sat.  The blind man was either oblivious or didn’t care.

Knowing that the sleep wouldn’t last, we quickly bound and gagged the were-rat and tossed him into an empty cell, which we then locked.  With the were-rat’s arrival, it was certain whomever was upstairs knew we were coming.  We could work that to our advantage.  He knew someone was stirring up things downstairs, but not who.

We had a pair of tieflings locked in their rooms who could fit the bill nicely.  I pulled out another scroll and cast the spell upon it.  A reasonable illusion of one of the tieflings appeared before me.  I had it begin walking up the stairs, carefully adding the sounds of the creaking steps to the illusion.  Geo crept up behind it, his footfalls much quieter than those of my image. 

I followed the image up, concentrating on keeping it going.  At the top of the steps, I could see the light from an open door.  The image stopped in front of the door as the man inside spoke.  “What the hell are you doing here, you idiot?!  You’re supposed to be patrolling downstairs.  What was that racket?”

The spell I was using doesn’t allow for intelligible speech, so I quickly added a swollen tongue to the image’s mouth.  One that looked like it had been bitten.  The image opened its mouth and pointed to its swollen tongue, making an apologetic gesture.  I then had it pantomime carrying a torch, falling, hitting the door and knocking itself out.

The man inside threatened to beat the tiefling, so I had the image flee in terror.  It had served its purpose.  Geo was at the top of the steps and just outside the door.  After a few moments, he peeked into the room and told me with hand signals that the man inside looked like the leader.  I nodded and began casting a spell as silently as I could.  If I turned myself invisible, I could use another spell to read the man’s mind and figure out what was going on, what horrible experiments he had wrought.

Of course, that assumed I could cast without being detected.  Which, naturally, isn’t what happened.  Instead, I heard the man start at the sound of my voice.  He got up and came to investigate.  He walked right past Geo, whose skin had gone chameleon mode and started down the stairs, where I stood invisible.  Not wanting to risk confrontation with what I assumed was another wizard, I waited until he had only one foot on the ground and gave him a push.  He flipped three times before reaching the bottom of the steps.

I was going to feel like an ass if he wasn’t the bad guy I expected him to be.

My comrades at the bottom of the stairs were on him immediately.  He was hogtied within seconds.  At least they trust my judgment, even if I second guess myself.  I saw Geo head down to help out and decided to investigate the upper floor further.  The man in the cell, Grayst, spotted me before I spotted him.

“He said you would find me.  He said to give you a message.  He said you should come to the Misgivings soon, to meet the pack, for they have something wonderful to show you.”  It was apparent he was past the terminal stage of his ghoul fever.  His eyes fixated on me, sending a chill down my spine.

“Umm, guys!” I called downstairs.  “I might need some help up here!  Paulie!  He looks flammable!”  Hey, you weren’t there.  You didn’t see the look he was giving me as he tried reaching through the bars to get to me for his master.  “Who told you this?  Who is your master?”

His face went completely emotionless and he looked at the floor for a moment.  “The Skinsaw Man is coming!” he whispered, once again fixating on me, renewing his efforts to reach through the bars.

Look.  I know.  I’m a wizard.  Things like that shouldn’t scare me.  But let’s face it, ever since the time I discovered The Slender Man mythos, there are some things that scare me more than they rationally should.  Someone with a name like that, what TVTropes calls “The Adjectival Man”, well that makes me nervous.  And he was coming for me. 

Was he the man setting up the dominos in my dream?  Or was this just another step up on the Sorting Algorithm of Evil?  I’m not sure which prospect worries me more.

Paulie arrived at the top of the stairs and skipped – skipped! – over to Grayst.  He looked at him for a moment and grinned.  “Your face looks pretty soft!” he said, before reaching out and touching Grayst, who was completely ignoring him.  In an instant, Grayst was ablaze. 

Even engulfed in flames, he continued to focus on me to the extent of ignoring the damage he was taking.  Even as Geo arrived and began to put some arrows in him, he continued staring at me.  As he took his last breath, his eyes continued to try to bore a hole in me.  I don’t think I’ll ever forget that sight as long as I live.

As I composed myself, Geo looked around.  His search confirmed what I had suspected.  He was ignoring basic human rights in his quest for knowledge about mental health issues.  Jesus Tapdancing Christ, I hate to be right sometimes.  Lenn brought the man up and we began to question him.

“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t have the catfolk light you on fire right now.”

“No!  You can’t!  He made me do it!”

“Who?” Geo asked.

“The necromancer!  Caizar Lu!”  He was blubbering as he spoke.  I’m pretty sure he pissed himself.

“Where is this necromancer?”

“In the basement!  Please don’t hurt me!”

“Let’s search him for keys, tie him up and lock him in this other cell.  He can look at Grayst while we deal with this necromancer.  That should give him plenty to think about.”  I’ll be honest.  I was seriously considering having Paulie just light him on fire anyway, but I don’t think Aurora and Geo would have approved.

We made our way downstairs and ran straight into a pack of zombies.  There were at least half a dozen of them.  Aurora, Lenn and Paulie kept their attention while Geo and I rushed down the hallway to get behind our foe.  As we ran, I heard him casting a spell.  I identified it as a spell to make it appear like you were in a place where you weren’t standing, like looking in a convex mirror makes things appear further away.  I shouted out to the others to use their other senses as their eyes would deceive them as a I ran behind Geo.

It was worse than I thought.  There were six of him.  I love that spell when I use it.  It was my favorite spell in World of Warcraft when I played my mage, and it’s one of my favorites now that I can cast it for real.  However, it’s also a pain in the ass when other people use it.

I blasted him with some magical glitter, hoping to blind him and Geo began swinging at him.  At least one hit connected as the man pulled out a potion.  That’s when I noticed the awful smell.

Over where Aurora, Lenn and Paulie were fighting the zombies, the necromancer had conjured a cloud of terribly foul gas.  Aurora looked like she was going to be ill, but the other two looked fine as they took down the last zombie.

The necromancer drank his potion and turned insubstantial.  He began float away, making his way out into the reception room.  Then Paulie let loose some kind of fireball.  Fire doesn’t care if you’ve gone semi-permeable.  In fact, you’ve just given it more surface area to scorch.

The necromancer fell in the reception area.  We had to wait about ten minutes to loot his corpse.  Meanwhile, we grabbed Herr Doctor Habe’s stash, since he had proven himself worth looting as well, even if we were going to arrest him.  Remember, we’re a band of murder hobos that has been given some minor authority by the local law.  We never promised not to rob people as we arrested them.  If the sheriff doesn’t like it, he can find someone else to investigate this shit.

In the basement, the necromancer’s lab contained several bodies, as well as a map of the Sandpoint hinterlands, where he had been tracking ghoul activity.   Figuring that would come in handy, we grabbed the map.   We also grabbed the necromancer’s spellbook and his notes on Thassilonian magic.

It seems that the Thassilonians took opposition schools to a whole new level.  I should probably clarify that a bit more.  You see, when you’re a wizard, you can choose to either specialize in a particular field, or try to get a general study of all magic.  I had chosen the latter, which is the norm at the Arcanamirium, but other schools emphasize specialization.  The downside to specialization is that you have to give up something to spend more time on the school you’ve chosen to focus on. 

This usually means that while you have a specialized knowledge of one school and a general knowledge of others, you have to choose to allow your study of another school or two to lapse.  We call these schools of magic that a wizard gains minimal knowledge in his “opposition schools”.  For the Thassilonians, your focus is determined by the “virtue” you choose to represent, as are your opposition schools.  And more than just lacking some knowledge of the opposition schools like other wizards, you eschew their use entirely. 

For instance, Wrath focuses on Evocation magic, while being opposed by Abjuration and Conjuration, the schools personifying Envy and Sloth.  So a Thassilonian focused on Wrath would be able to bring down a fireball, but unable to teleport or shield their mind against mental attacks.  All for a few extra spells per day of your specialization.

Every school of magic has something to offer.  While I can understand specializing in a field, giving up use of two schools entirely is so far beyond foolish as to border on madness.  A good wizard should have a tool for all situations, not spend all their metaphorical coin on a single, really good hammer and a couple surplus wrenches, forgetting to buy any tin snips.

What happens when you find yourself needing to cut a sheet of tin?  You gonna bang on it with the hammer?  Good luck with that.  Still, the notes were what I needed to piece together the linking thread between the earlier murders.

I grabbed the scroll the necromancer had as well.  It contained a spell for animating the dead on it, and I’m planning to add it to my spell book.  Sure, it’s evil magic, but every tool has a purpose.

Going back to the map, it’s worth noting that much of the activity was centered on the Foxglove River.  That was an interesting piece of the puzzle, to be sure.

You see, when Grayst mentioned The Misgivings, he was talking about the Foxglove family estate.  It was called The Misgivings by the local Varisian populace due to the number of tragedies that had befallen it.  In the eighty years that it had stood, people had died, servants’ quarters had burned and it had stood abandoned for much of the span. 

Notable deaths included the entire family of Vorel Foxglove, the merchant prince who had built it, as well as Cyralie and Traver Foxglove.  Cyralie had been burned to death and was found smashed upon the cliffs behind the house, while Traver had killed himself in his bedroom.

Naturally, it was also rumored to be haunted.  The only person who ever visited it was the caretaker, Rogors Craesby, but he was dead.  I knew he was dead because Craesby was missing an ear, and I recalled that the ghast at the farm had been missing one as well.  I’m serious.  The recollection came to me all Shawn Spencer style.

Haunted or no, the investigation led there, so we had to go.  Of course it was a trap.  We aren’t stupid.  We’ll take the best precautions we can.  But it’s the only hand we have to play right now and none of us are keen on giving up yet.

Back when Summer Wars came out, a number of my friends and I got into Hanafuda Koi-Koi.  I don’t want to spend too much time here discussing the rules, but the important thing to remember for my purposes is that any time points are scored by forming a yaku, or card combination, you can choose to either stop to cash in points, or you can choose to keep going.  When you keep going, you say the words Koi-Koi, or “come on”, to indicate that you’re continuing.  This isn’t without its dangers, as the opponent can end up stealing away your victory by forming a yaku before you can do so again.  This is, of course, a gross oversimplification of the rules, but it’s close enough for my purposes here.

We had won a victory, even if mostly unrelated to the main task, by slaying the necromancer.  His information will prove invaluable.  Unfortunately, our foe was still winning, and if he won, more people would die.  This hand wasn’t over.  Koi-koi.

We were so tired when we got back to town and turned over our prisoner that we didn’t even realize that Shadowmist, Rarity and the two farmers never made it back.

0 Comments

Leave a Reply