" ... or so you'd think."  The comment burbled up from out of the well of Pisca's thoughts to emerge as a translucent, many-hued thing before ending its existence with a soft pop and a spray of gentle mist.  "Why is it that humans put such stock in nobility?  You all know, right?"

This last question brought her up from the search of the bodies to confront the others in the room: humans all of them.  "That nobility doesn't really exist?  That it only holds true as long as other people are willing to acknowledge it?"  The gnome shrugged and hopped down off the table without waiting for a reply.

"Nothing more to be found here."  She brushed her hands together, ridding them of the invisible dust of her recent efforts.  "I need to speak to your Lieutenant, Stomper.  I still think all this may be part of a vendetta against the Scarnetti's.  I'm sure he knows scores of people who might hold a grudge against them, but that field may narrow when limited to people who might claim the rights of a Lord."

---

---

Kerr looked over Liseth’s shoulder.  “I don’t know what happened to these men,” he said, gazing down at the horrified visage of Gedwin Tabe before looking up, an earnest expression on his face, “but we need to stop it from happening to anyone else. “  He paused.  “Ever.”

“If this is a real lord that we’re talking about,” the paladin-in-training continued Pisca’s line of thought, “how is it that no one has noticed that he’s turned into a horrifying undead creature?  It seems like most lords would have retinues, or servants, or something along those lines, right?  How has he managed to keep this story from getting out?”  Kerr scratched his head.  “Seems like his servants would have run screaming.  Or that he would have killed them all.  Either way, you’d think someone would have noticed.  Wouldn’t you?”

Everyone seemed to have learned from what they could from the bodies of the Scarnetti stooges.  It was a somber group that headed upstairs, past Caul Thatcher’s desk to Alergast’s office.  Kellan rapped smartly on the door.

“Enter!”  Alergast’s unmistakable baritone invited them inside.  His careworn features brightened as he recognized his visitors.  “Welcome back,” he stood and gestured to the various chairs around the room, “make yourselves comfortable.  Did you get Venn back to Shayliss?”  Once everyone had entered, he walked over to the door and stuck his head outside.

“Caul, I’m in a meeting.  No disturbances until we’re done.”  He called down the hallway.

“Yes, sir.”  The desk officer’s muted voice responded.

Alergast closed the door, then walked back to his desk.  “So,” he took a chair, leaning forward, arms on the desk in front of him.  “It sounds like you have something important to tell me.  Something that we might not want getting out to the wider public.  What have you found?”

---

---

"That's BRILLIANT!"  The smile that lit the gnome's beamish brow  was every bit as bright as whatever it might have been that Kerr had just said to warrant her words.

"Lysa, your boyfriend is brilliant.  Just brilliant."  And the gnome gave Kerr's bottom a smack to show her appreciation.

"Now all we need to do is look for a lord who's missing or absent."  So pleased was Pisca with her new Kerr Mollin inspired thought, that she left it to the others to describe what they'd found at the mill.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:45, Thu 01 Oct 2015.

"Of course he is Pisca."  Liseth had to confirm Kerr's new brilliant status.  "But that's not the only reason to keep him around."  It seemed so easy for Pisca to bounce back from being glum, and even lighten the mood for everyone else.

"Yes we did, Lieutenant Barret."  Liseth answered once they were in the garrison office to give their report.  "Mister Vinder and Shayliss will need a lot of time, but it will be better for them to be together."

The girl looked around the office after the door had closed, into the faces of all her friends.  It looked like everyone was hesitant to share what they had learned.  Which wasn't surprising, it was not as though they came here to give any good news!

"Well..."  The acolyte started.  "What we found at the mill...and confirmed here with the other bodies, is that it wasn't just a mad killer who did all this.  We're almost certain that the killer is an undead."  She paused a moment to let the pronouncement sink in.

"Outside the mill, on the pier, we found muddy footprints where someone had climbed out of the water.  That's how it got into the mill and how it got away, it must have walked along the bottom of the river in order to leave prints like that.  Because an undead doesn't need to breathe."

"And I examined all of the bodies, the ones here and at the mill.  They all showed signs of having tried to fight back, but their wounds looked like slash marks.  From a five fingered hand.  A person's hand.  A person wouldn't leave deep gouges like that with just their fingers.  But an undead would; it's finger bones are able to leave wounds like what I saw."

"Also, we found an axe at the mill.  We believe that it was used by Katrine during the struggle to chop the killer.  We found blood on it that was rotten, and bits of skin that were rotten too.  It shouldn't have been decomposed like that if the attack was only hours ago.  It had to have been from an undead.  The blood was...was dead."

"This is why we didn't want to tell everyone right away, Lieutenant Barret.  If they knew an undead killer was striking, and could come out of the water at any time to murder someone...there would be a panic!"  If the citizens of Sandpoint felt the same as she did about the prospect of being ambushed at any time by an undead killer, there would definitely be a panic!

"Pretty much what she said" Kellan chimed in with a dour look "From everything we are seeing here it sounds like it's just as much a matter for the temples as for us. Something that doesn't eat, sleep, or breath but is still smart and strong enough to climb a vertical wall and sneak around at night"

Kellan ran a thumb against the edge of his pole axe as if wondering what effect the blade might have on undead flesh. "Looking for a lord is a good start I suppose, not many lordly types around these parts anyway. To be honest I don't know much about these things in any way...don't know if we are looking for a priest, a mage or if these things just come about on their own."

He glanced briefly between Liseth and Cato before resuming. "Far as letting the people know...well, most of the militia members are pretty fresh, and I'm always in favor of being honest where we can, but I'll leave that up to the Sheriff and the Mayor"

Cato nods to confirm Liseth's story.  "Nothing I saw at the scene contradicts that explanation.  I don't think there's a better thing for us to do then be proactive, trace down the leads we still have, like Grayst down at the Sanitorium.  Maybe we can get something out of him, enough to further identify this undead killer."  Cato shook his head.  "Because what I learned from the trouble at Thistletop was that being proactive is what's really needed to help in this situation.  We can't just sit back and wait for trouble to come to us.  Because it'll strike and there's nothing to do but clean up the mess.  We can't watch all the rivers and alleys of Sandpoint waiting for someone else to fall victim."

"It's a good start."  The gnome nodded her head in agreement.  "Looking for a lord.  From there lets add a lord who's been missing for a bit."

"His idea," Pisca added and pointed in the direction the Boyfriend.  "If we knew the sort of undead thing we were dealing with, that might tell us how a lord might become an undead, and this might tell us how long this lord would most likely have been missing for.  Yes?"  Pisca the Master of Deductive Reasoning looked into the faces of her friends to ensure that they were following her trail of metaphorical bread crumbs.

"Help me out here, Lysa.  What do we know of this undead lord?  I know from personal experience that Your Lordship is possessed of a sickening stench.  You've already mentioned the ability to paralyze his victims.  Disease.  And Your Lordship is clearly intelligent.  What brand of undead would you say that fits, Lys?"

"And lets not forget that there may be a connection with the Scarnetti's.  Your Lordship knew that the first three victims were Scarnetti associates.  He must have.  He knew to lure then to a Scarnetti warehouse.  The mill was a Scarnetti concern.  So it's possible that we're dealing with a lord that has criminal ties."

"Then there's the Sihedron which is connected to the Runelord ruins.  Coincidently, it's a star with Seven points.  Seven, which, equally coincidently is the same number on the card we found on Mister Maskie.  And, if there is anyone who ever struck me as criminally inclined, it would be this shadowy Mister Maskie."

The gnome tipped her head up again to check in with her friends.

"Don't you think?"

Knowledge Religion check 20 (Taking 10 per Lore Master and using Archaeologist's Luck) for what sort of undead we may be dealing with here given the facts that we know.  Stench.  Intelligence.  Paralysis.  Disease.

Also looking for help from Liseth on this.

AL: 7/9

Lore Master Used for the Day

"Umm, well..."  Liseth began to answer Pisca.  "I'm not certain that this undead can paralyze its victims.  In fact, it looks like its victims all died fighting.  Which might point that it can't paralyze them."

"But there are all sorts of terrible things undead can do.  Some can even drain your life right out of you, just by a touch."  The petite blonde shivered, "or claw.  We'll probably learn more when we interview the survivor.  I hope."

"It is intelligent though, that much is for sure."  The acolyte looked up in thought, "Those undead at the graveyard, when we rode through to Thistletop, had a leader.  Maybe it has something to do with this?"  That was speculation, but by this point they didn't have much.  "I think those undead were ghouls and ghasts, which can paralyze.  And the lead one used armor and weapons, remember?  Maybe it's the noble one in charge?"

"If its an undead that can drain people's life, we might be dealing with a wight.  Or a vampire, but I don't think a vampire would attack in this style."  Just talking about these things sent a shiver down the girl's spine.  "A vampire wants to bite it's victims."

"A wight though...they are very dangerous.  Clever enough to use tricks against its victims, instead of just attacking like a ghoul would.  I think we're dealing with a wight, but that still doesn't help us determine its motives, or if it's acting alone."  She looked at Kerr and squeezed his arm, "or why it is interested in Kerr."

"I don't know much about nobles in the Sandpoint area though.  The founding families might have some members who would think of themselves as a Lord."  Certainly the Scarnettis.  Liseth suddenly frowned, "You don't think somebody might have stolen Lonjiku Kaijitsu's body and made him into an undead?"

"What other nobles frequent Sandpoint?"  The girl looked around at the more local of her friends, and Alergast Barrett.  "There's Mister Foxglove..." she shook her head, "but it couldn't be him.  Right?  I mean, he's Father Zantus's friend!"

OOC: Out of curiosity, has  Foxglove been to Sandpoint since the events after the festival?
This message was last edited by the player at 21:55, Tue 06 Oct 2015.

"Aldern?"  The gnome slipped on an overly exaggerated look of incredulity.  She followed it with a, "Piffle.  Unthinkable.  Aldern went to Magnimar on business.  Remember?"  And then she pooh-poohed the very notion with a dismissive wiggle of her fingers.  Still, when all of the pooh-poohing and the finger wiggling was done, what remained was a concerned looking gnome who might just be entertaining an unthinkable thought.

"Could be Lonjiku.  But, then why Kerr, as you say?  Why not Tsuto?"

"A wight then.  That's the real question, Lysa.  How does one become a wight and how long does that process take?  If it takes a long time, then Aldern couldn't possibly be Your Lordship.  We just saw him ... wasn't it a short while ago?"

"No.  Wait.  We really haven't seen him for months then.  Have we?  At any rate, so how long does it take to turn to wight-dom?  Or is that wight-ness?  How long is the wight-celeration process?"

"That should help us narrow down the field of candidates, I would think."

---

---

“Good.”  Alergast nodded curtly at the news of the Vinders' reunion--then his mouth fell open as he heard the evidence the group had found regarding the mill murderer.  “A . . . what . . . undead you say?”  For the first time anyone could remember, the lieutenant looked out of his depth.  He silently mouthed the word “undead” as Liseth continued to speak.

“Holy Desna,” he said when she’d finished, having gone several shades paler.  “An undead assassin stalking the streets of Sandpoint at night, rising from the Turandarok like some sort of monster from . . . from a children’s tale?”  His eyes flicked to the door, then back to the group.  “This . . . well, this is disturbing news.”  He seemed to be recovering from his shock.  “And you’re right, Liseth, I can only imagine the panic in town should word get out.  Honestly is important, Kellan, but we don’t always need to tell people everything.  And this is one of those things we should keep between us.  Nobody else except Mayor Deverin and Sherriff Hemlock needs to know about this, and I’ll report to them myself.  We’ll tell people to keep their doors and windows locked, just as a precaution.”  He sighed.  “That’s going to cause enough panic right there.”

Alergast sat back in his chair as he mulled over Kellan’s tactical analysis of the situation.  “This isn’t an opponent the Guard is trained to fight.”  He steepled his fingers under his chin, thinking.  “Right.”  He said, as if he’d made a decision.  “I’m going to add an extra man to every night patrol, so that we’ll have groups of three rather than two.  Hopefully that will be enough to beat whatever this is into submission should a patrol run across it.  Although from what you’ve said it sounds crafty enough to avoid the patrols.”  He paused, thinking.  “Do we have any idea what it is doing here?  Was there any evidence what it wanted?  Why Sandpoint?  Why now?”  He spread his hands helplessly.  “It’s hard to predict the moves of an enemy you know next to nothing about.”

“That sounds like a good plan, Cato,” the lieutenant agreed.  “I think you should be proactive.  What we need to do is find out as much about this thing as we possibly can.  It sounds like Grayst actually saw it, so maybe he can give you some sort of information about it that you don’t already have.  Ideally, of course, I’d like you to track down its lair and kill it.  But if it’s walking underneath the Turandarok,” the guard officer’s voice was still slightly incredulous, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was saying, “that’s going to be easier said than done.  Is there anything else we know about it?”

---

---

This message was last edited by the player at 15:03, Wed 07 Oct 2015.

---

---

"I can think of three possibilities," Kerr offered.  "It could be a wight, like Liseth said, especially if it is a newer wight.  Like Lise said, wights definitely have the intelligence to do something like this, and they also reputedly have the ability to drain the life from their victims--that could seem like paralysis.  But wights don't spread disease, and from what I've read anyone killed by a wight becomes a wight pretty quickly, and none of the three men killed at the mill, Banny, or Katrine have shown any inclination to become a wight."  He coughed nervously.  "Um, yet."

"From what I've studied ghouls also fit a lot of these particulars.  Stench, disease, and paralysis are all things attributed to ghouls.  The only outlier is the intelligence.  This creature seems smarter than the ghouls I read about.  I mean, I know ghouls are intelligent--they're not animals--but they've never been reputed to be THAT intelligent.  Also, ghouls generally hang around graveyards and eat the flesh of corpses.  Slipping into town to kill to people, and then carving a symbol into them rather than just eating them, is definitely not ghoul-like behavior."

"I also know that mummies spread disease and would probably leave rotten flesh if attacked.  But mummies generally only guard tombs or treasures, right?"  He looked to Liseth for support.  "But if these dead folks had been involved in say, a grave robbery, however, or had handled goods from such a robbery," he paused, giving everyone a meaningful look, "who knows to what lengths a mummy might go to retrieve it?"  He looked triumphant; then his face fell.  "But that doesn't explain the note for me or the symbol carving either."  He thought for a second.  "Actually, that's not something we would really expect from any of them.  What is going on here?"

---

---

This message was last edited by the player at 05:20, Thu 08 Oct 2015.

"Hello?"  Pisca gave the Lieutenant of the guard a look of annoyance.  "Has no one been listening to the gnome?"  She gave a polite cough into her hand, a prelude to a re-recitation of her deductive reasons.

"Underworld connections.  This undead has connections to criminals and their network of intelligence.  How else would he know about these Scarnetti footmen?" she said, and waved a hand to indicate the bodies.  "The Scarnetti's.  The connection between these men, the warehouse, and the mill may be coincidental, they are both connected to the Scarnetti's.  We can't rule out the possibility that this is some sort of attack on them."

"Then there's the Sihedron.  It is connected to the One-Eyed Maskies that we encountered in Thistletop, and they seemed suspiciously criminal to me.  It may be helpful to speak to Titus Scarnetti and see if he recognizes either our card or the mask."

Then Pisca grinned up at Lieutenant Alergast Barett and gave the human a perky wink.

---

---

"Mummies, wights, and ghouls," Alergast said wonderingly.  He let out a breath.  "I'll be happy when we get to the other side of this.  And I certainly wouldn't be surprised if the Scarnettis are somehow involved."  He shared a look with Kellan.  "Let's just say that there are a long line of people who feel wronged by that family."

"But if we are dealing with underworld connections you should probably talk to Jubrayl."  He favored Pisca with a wry expression.  "I hear you have . . . something of a relationship with the man.  He's a villain, of course, but I imagine his relationship with the Scarnettis is just as rocky as everyone else's."  The big man shrugged.  "Or maybe it isn't.  Either way, it can't hurt to talk to him.  The man's got his fingers in most of the criminal enterprises in the area."  Alergast looked as if he'd swallowed something sour.  "Even if we've never been able to prove it."

---

---

This message was lightly edited by the player at 15:25, Wed 07 Oct 2015.

"I've been thinking of paying Jubrayl a visit."  The gnome nodded.  Quietly, though, as if involved in other thoughts.  "Last time I paid a visit to the Fatman, they were closed for a wedding ... or a funeral ... or maybe a convention of dwarves."

"I think I'll go see how Jubrayl is after we return from the sanatorium."  Pisca rose from her thoughts, a smile drawing across her peach cream face as she did.  "If for no other reason than to compliment him on the quality of his recent villainy."  And the gnome tossed a wink at the guard lieutenant.

"Shall we go?"

Cato listened to the speculations of Pisca, Kerr and Liseth with attention.  The scholar felt out of his depth with nothing to add to the conversation, but remembered the gist of it for later.  Mummy, ghoul, wight, or perhaps something else?  At least it's something to start with...

Finally, the wizard nodded to Pisca.  "Ready here.  Anything we can find has got to be better than endless speculation."

Kellan shared Alergasts look and let out a small sigh. It was easy to forget about the more mundane elements of their job these days, and the Scarnettis certainly personified the idea of an organized force working against the kind of society they worked to uphold and protect.

"Yeah, we should propably get on our way." he agreed and turned to Alergast "Thanks, for everything. We'll let you know as soon as we find anything that might shed some light on this. Be safe" the last words were added with a seriousness that hammered home Kellans sincere wishes to see his Lieutenant and his family pass through these dark days unscathed.

---

---

“That’s settled, then.”  Alergast selected a parchment from a stack on his desk and began writing.  “This,” he informed them as he carefully dipped his quill in an ink jar that sat not far away, “is a letter of introduction to Habe.  The man can be . . . particular about people showing up unannounced at his facility.”

Alergast sighed as he wrote.  “There were a couple of incidents when he first opened a couple of years ago.  Farmboys thinking it would be good fun to torment a home full of crazy people.  Bandits unaware that such people don’t, as a rule, have much gold.”  He paused, reading the note, then nodded and scribbled a signature at the bottom.  “We put a stop to that in short order, partially because of Habe’s precautions, and partially because of, well . . . .”  The lieutenant held the paper up, eying his handiwork critically.  “He trusts me, though, after I helped him out,” he thrust the letter towards Kellan, “so this should smooth things over with him at the beginning.  Still, the man can be prickly, so,” he looked at Pisca, “please at least try to be on your best behavior.”

Shortly thereafter, the group found itself ahorse, cantering their way out of Sandpoint towards Habe’s Sanatorium.  It was a pleasant few miles trotting through the mid-afternoon sun; the shady trees weren’t quite dense enough to block a cool, frolicsome breeze.  The conversation and the company made it easy to forget the horrible threat besetting Sandpoint.

Before long, with some guidance from Kellan, the group arrived at their destination.  The sanatorium—from the outside, at least—looked like an ideal location for the mentally ill to deal with their problems.  A soft, green carpet of grass led up to a squat, stone building.  It was three stories tall, with a stout, stone-flagged roof, located just in the lee of the limestone escarpment known as the Ashen Rise.  It had solid, well-made oaken doors and narrow windows, no more than 4 inches wide, large enough to permit air circulation but far too small to allow access inside.

The building itself—if observed from the north—resembled nothing so much as the letter “F.”  Stairs on  the structure’s indented northwest side led up to a homey-looking veranda, equipped with several comfortable-looking chairs facing out towards the normally sun-dappled woods.  The veranda itself stretched ten feet out in front of the Sanatorium’s front door, located in the southernmost side of the bottom of the “F” shape.  The porch ran around the entirety of the northwest side of the building.

There didn’t seem to be any outside activity at the moment, but that could have been because the weather was turning cooler and the sky threatening rain.  Billows of gray crowded the heavens, their dusty-charcoal wisps touching down on Ashen Rise until it was difficult to tell where the one ended and the other began.  A chill wind picked up, carrying a sharp, tangy smell that hinted at incipient precipitation.

A simple horizontal pole for the tethering of horses sat to north of the sanatorium, on the very bottom of the “F” shape.  The pole was supported by two thick wooden posts.  It currently had no occupants.

“So,” said Kerr, sliding off his horse with very little difficulty.  Well, not much difficulty.  He smiled at Liseth; her horsemanship lessons seemed to be taking.  “Here we are.”  He looked at his longbow with some consternation.  “Um, given what Lieutenant Barett said, should we take our weapons in or not?”

---

---

This message was last edited by the GM at 01:57, Fri 09 Oct 2015.

Cato dismounted and tied his horse to the pole, examining the sanatorium in front of them.  Finally, he turned to Kerr.

"Hmmm...a good question.  Alergast said Habe'd be a bit touchy, right?  Probably best to leave anything threatening behind.  Besides, we're just questioning the one man, right?  If Habe's as competent as we've heard, everything should be under control in there.  And anyway...the only thing I really need to be threatening are these."

The wizard held up his hands, performing a few quick finger-loosening exercises.

No reply came from the gnome.  It was, in fact, unclear whether she even heard Kerr Mollin's question, so involved was she in cooing over her beloved pony.  After looping her reins loosely around the long hitching post, she stroked the soft nose of her most loved equine friend.

"*Yom*Yom*Yom*," said the gnome in the Secret Language of Mystic Ponies.  "That's right.  We'll be right back.  *Yom*Yom*Yomity*Yom*."

Finally, however, Pisca turned from Annette Hannigan Pickleberry Cloud Manners to face the ostensibly pleasant facade of Habe's Sanatorium.  "Where are all of the lawn bowlers?" she asked no one in particular.  "There should be lawn bowling here."  And then the gnome dismissed her own question with a shrug and proceeded across the well manicured lawn and up onto the veranda.  After turning to take in the view from the front porch, she headed for the big oaken doors where, instead of knocking or attempting to open the doors as one might expect from someone after having had approached big oaken doors, she proceeded to poke and eye the lock, establishing a first impression of the entire building through an examination of this single feature thereof.

Riding Heily made it was easy to forget all of the terrible things happening.  Going on a ride with Kerr and all of her friends was a great tonic.  A picnic was out of the question today, unfortunately; a thing made all the more clear when Habe's sanitarium came into view.

"You're getting a lot better in the saddle Kerr."  Liseth managed a little giggle, "you didn't fall out of the saddle once!"

The girl slid off of Heily with a bit of help, Heily was very tall after all.  Them patted her white mare before hitching her to the post.  "I don't think we'll take long Heily." She looked around, "this looks like a safe place."  Liseth looked back up At Heily, "Make sure everyone stays out of trouble while we're gone!  We don't want to give Mr Have any bad impressions."

"I don't think we'll need weapons inside.  Its basically a hospital."  Liseth shrugged, then thought, "but we should be safe.  We don't know what that undead did to the man we're here to see.  I'll ask if its okay before we're let in."

At the door, Liseth looked down at Pisca with a little puzzlement as the gnome seemed to examine the door itself.  But then the girl simply took hold of the door knocker and let it ring against the heavy door.

---

---

Leaving their weapons behind, the party walked up the broad wooden stairs to the sanatorium’s main doors, the veranda’s boards creaking loudly as they adjusted to the group’s unaccustomed weight.   As they drew close to the building, everyone could see that it was painted regularly; there were no flakes, mars, or gouges on the exterior walls.

The large brass knocker hit the oak door with a dull thud.

After a moment, the door opened halfway, revealing a dark-skinned man dressed in neat, white clothing.  Although fit and well-muscled, he was small—shorter than Liseth but larger than Pisca.  The taller members of the party could see two ugly scars marring an otherwise lustrous mane of thick black hair that fell to his shoulders.  But his most-notable feature was a pair of striking orange eyes.  Those eyes narrowed slightly as the man inspected the party with an air of suspicion.

Behind the man the group could see a room, 15 feet long by ten feet wide, with a desk located almost exactly in the middle.  There were three of the same comfortable-looking chairs in this room, two in front of the desk, facing the opposite wall, and one behind the desk, scooted back and facing the south.

The orange eyes traveled quickly over the group, relaxing slightly when they found no obvious threat.  “How can I help you?”  Asked the man, a tinge of skepticism still present in his voice.  It seemed rich and smooth, designed to calm and soothe any anxieties that might be afflicting his listeners.

---

---

This message was last edited by the GM at 17:46, Fri 09 Oct 2015.

"You're not Erin Habe."  The skepticism in the gnome's voice mirrored that in the voice of the man who'd just answered the door.  "Or, at least, if you are Erin Habe, you're not very much as I'd imagined Erin Habe to be," she added.

"Actually, I'm surprised that you don't know us."  Pisca reached into her pouch and produced her Deputy's Batch.  "We're quite famous.  And we have badges.  But, then again, maybe you haven't been to Sandpoint for a while."

Under cover of her inane chatter, the gnome scrutinized the Answerer of the Door, examining his face and mannerisms and comparing them with the things she'd heard about the Sanatorium and the people associated with it.  Curious eyes.  He had very curious and interesting eyes.  Not very human-ish.  Or human-like.  Or human-ity.

Appropriate Knowledge Check to identify the race of this person.
And ... lets also try a Knowledge Local check to see if we can't identify this person by name, shall we?

A spark struck in Pisca's head.  It flared, magnesium bright, bringing an Ah-Ha Moment that spread across her face.  "Of course you don't know us," she said.  "You're one of the tieflings from Cheliax, right?  Newly arrived."

"Well, I'm Pisca Neep Freemish.  This is Liseth Thoradin," she said.  "This is Cato Crispin.  Kellan Storval," Pisca continued, indicating each with her hand as she went.  "And this is Liseth's boyfriend.  We're the Sandpoint Saviors."

"We've been deputized by the Sandpoint Guard and have come on Guard business.  Uh ... we have a letter somewhere.  Who has the letter?"

Kellan retrieved the letter from his belt pouch and gently unfolded it, offering it to the man after wiping his boots. In Kellans mind his guard tabbard was far more convincing than a scrap of parchment, but he supposed that every bit helped.

"Good to meet you" Kellan offered as he glanced around the place, taking in what details he could while he could. There were few local places that he had never been, but this was one of them, and he was sure that with his luck it would not be the last.

"Oh, hello."  Liseth was immediately put off by the strange little man answered the door.  She took a step back and had no problem letting Pisca speak first.

"His name is Kerr."  The girl clarified after Pisca introduced them.  Liseth tried to not stare at the little man.  A teifling?  Liseth had never met a teifling before; weren't they supposed to have...evil blood?

She knew that it wasn't fair to judge anyone just because of their heritage.  The acolyte tried to not let her discomfort show.

"Umm...we're here because we need to interview a man that was brought here recently.  After being attacked.  We were supposed to meet with Mister Habe?"