Shadow War campaign In-Game: Chapter 28- Wesley's Message

[sab39]

{also I never got a clear answer from the other party members as to how many if any of each of their arrows they wanted rabbited. I did two of mine and suggested two each for everyone else but nobody confirmed?}

[Navarre]

Rachel replies, "Aye. I got me knife right 'ere. And Donnie 'as more daggers than bones in 'is body. Ye'd need a whole passel o' rabbits to do all o' them."

Donovan twists his mouth at her and hands over one of his daggers as Rachel hands you her knife.

Rachel continues.

"It's 'ard to tell what secrets the church might 'ave over there. Keepin' secrets seems to be somethin' they're mighty good at."

"But sure'n that church canna be the same building as that picture Fae drew. Didna Bedlor say the temple was all marble or some such? The church is wood on block, just like all the other buildings in the city proper. 'Course, not to say they couldna put a new face o'er it, I suppose."

"Ye t'ink we should check oot Foster's grave too? Maybe Donnie's right. Welsey woulda had a devil gettin' into the church but the graveyard be a bid mess o' nobody. Least ways, nobody that could tell his secret."

[Gaumer]

"Aye, then let's go. A quick trip there an' then we'll be comin' back if needs be."

Bedlor heads for the front door of the library to head towards the graveyard.

{I assumed the same number of arrows were rabbit-fied by B-Diddy.}

[sab39]

As I rabbitify Donovan's daggers and Rachel's knife the way Zeke showed me, I reply to Rachel.

"Yes, I reckon the Church is something else, not the amulet. When Ximon made that picture, the amulet wasn't missing, after all."

"It could just be a metaphor - 'the Church is the key' or something, but then why bother with so much detail in making it a marble building?"

"So I think we go to the graveyard with Bedlor first, then the Church unless what we find at the graveyard changes our priorities further."

[Navarre]

Rachel hops off of the table, taking her half-eaten peach with her.

"Sounds like a plan to me, T'Ning!"

"Say, 'ow did those little gifts I gave ye be a'workin fir ye in the Tourney? I 'eard Fae won but I 'ope they 'elped a wee bit?"

[sab39]

I reply as I walk towards the door.

"Um, well, they gave me some excellent strategy options but didn't work in practice so well. The magical types managed to shrug off the thunderstone, and I found a good use for the acid but it rather depended on me being able to disarm Liv, which I didn't manage to do."

"Still have one of the acid vials left, too."

[Navarre]

"Och, sorry to 'ear they didna do the trick fir ye.", she says as she grabs a small bag from under the bookcase on her way out.

"Speakin o' tricks, 'ere.", she hands each of you (as well as Zeke) what appears to be a bar of slightly oily soap.

"This be those scent bars Donnie mentioned. This is the neutral one. Should hide yuir scent a good long hour."

"Ain't gonna git my ass chewed a second time fir forgettin' it if'n that cat still be aboot. When I see that little bastard again I'm gonna wring its neck, sure."

[sab39]

I look to Bedlor to see if he wants to wait to apply the scent bars now, or save them for later. This is his mission so his call.

[Gaumer]

"I reckon 'oldin' on to 'em for a bit would be good. Nothin' to be fearin' so early in the day I'd figure."

[Navarre]

You leave the library through the front door, Donovan locking it behind you. The city is full of people but they are all in the main section, barely a single local moving either to or from their home in the old city.

The Eye still sits high in the Tilling Season sky. You estimate it to be about four hours past noon, giving you a good four and a half hours before the funeral.

You discretely make your way around the building and into the Solemn Rest Cemetery. You find the cemetery to be as damp as the field connected to it. Water sits in several low areas and the grass here in some places is almost as high as Chase's shoulder.

Donovan shakes his head in sadness at how casually people seem to take Death and remarks if it is a reflection of how little passion they have for Life either.

Chase sniffs the ground, finding a scent here and there. The badger at first seems its usual energetic and random self but slowly seems to become more and more attuned to something the further it goes. It looks around with an attitude that is unclear to you but bothered by something.

Donovan points you to a location a ways into the cemetery directly from the gate. You see a freshly dug grave there, a tarp laid over it, and a small marble marker on the ground.

{This is at the dot directly between the "1" and the "0" on the map of the cemetery.}

Walking over to the grave, you see the marker reads:

Wesley Carrigan
Deserving of a Life More Full
1479-1497

[Gaumer]

Bedlor begins searching for the grave marked Foster.

{Spot d20+8=13}

{Bed wants to check the area with the blacker dot north of the library most.}

[Navarre]

You start looking over the cemetery at the markers and tombstones. You find many tombstones have sunk into the wet, uneven ground, falling over. They lie cracked and broken now, worms crawling beneath them on the bare places left by their weight.

Bedlor, something doesn't feel right here. Something tugs at your dwarven senses.

It feels much like the peculiar feeling you got near the border between Old City and West Wellington proper. You strain your senses to determine what it might be but it is a bit too elusive for you.

However, something has definitely caught the badger's attention. It breaks from you and bolts westward, directly ahead of you. {Heading for that darker dot on the map.}

As it runs ahead, you see a hare jump from a spot ahead of you where it was hiding and begin to run. As it does, the ground north of you erupts into a furious ocean of brown and beige.

Hundreds and hundreds of hares bolt from hiding places throughout the tall grass of the cemetery, running en mass for the outer wall of the city. Their rapid bounding creates a new landscape comprised of bouncing ears and fluffy tails.

Chase, now seeing these hares as well, starts after the badger. She pursues them at full speed but they all have a head start from where they were gathered ahead of you.

You lose sight of her almost immediately, as you do the smaller hares themselves. The badger, however, suddenly diverts. As much as it lives for the pursuit of the elusive hares, something more compelling has caught its attention.

It rounds in a sweeping circle and heads back near the location of the first hare to move. It stops at a single grave some distance ahead where the hare was sitting.

The badger sits up on its haunches and looks at you with wide eyes and a tongue that hangs uncontrollably from its mouth. It sniffs the ground and waits impatiently for you.

Donovan remarks from behind you, "That is the grave I mentioned earlier. The one where the grass was different, see?"

You look and see that, indeed, the grass here is different than the rest. You approach the grave now, bright green grass growing among the yellowish reeds of most of the cemetery.

You look at the marker. It too is a small plaque, made of nothing more than a simple grey stone with chiseled letters.

Abraham Foster
Traveler and Poet
? - 18

[Gaumer]

"Oi, there it be, now what is it hiding?"

Bedlor looks over the tombstone and surrounding area very closely

{Search d20+6=19}

[Navarre]

Using a combination of a careful search and your own knowledge of nature, you deduce that this grave has been disturbed not once, but twice.

The first disturbance seems to have been six months ago. It was a relatively minor disturbance, a portion of the grave having been dug up near the marker. The area disturbed looks to be a little more than a foot square.

The digging looks to have been done not with any implement, but by hand. This overturning of dirt was sufficient to allow newer grass to grow in this area, setting itself off from the reeds around it with fresh, green grass.

But you see the grave has been disturbed a second time as well. This disturbance also looks to have been done by hand but is more frantic. You can still barely detect lines in the ground where human-sized fingers dug heaping handfuls of dirt from this grave, only later to replace it. There is even what appears to be...a fistprint?, in the dirt...as if someone struck the ground hard with their fist.

This area of disturbance is almost twice as large as the first but in the same area. It seems to be larger solely because so little care was taken in the digging effort. Where the first digging seems to be meticulous and precise, the second bears a manic motion.

The second digging is not nearly as old as the first. You estimate it to be perhaps just over a month old.

The badger has continued to sit on its haunches while you have inspected the ground. But, an impatient and impetuous creature, it nips you on the finger and begins digging with its forepaws at the grave of Abraham Foster.

[Gaumer]

"Hmmm. It seems to be buried if it be 'ere at all. Maybe the badger can be useful 'ere."

Bedlor attempts to persuade the badger to dig in the area of the fist print.

HA Check d20+10=22