"I don't know anything about magic, but I know there are techniques and ways to make false foot prints. My first thought is a fake foot pressed into the ground, but again, that's only a mundane option. If true it means this had a lot of planning put into it though."

Amara gave a little shrug, she knew a few simple tricks to disguise footprints but she was sure there was magical tricks that would be a lot better. She paid more attention then as her eyes seemed to stare a bit too intensely as she examined the footprints.

Moggrim frowned when they entered the tent and spotted the body.  His nose flared some as he audibly inhaled and then grumbled, "Poison.  Number of them will cause that stench and bloat."

He moved over towards the body with a grimace and while he looked to see if the more necrotic tissue was in the wounds itself he also looked to see if there was enough blood for him to have been killed here or if he was brought there and dumped.  As he looked closely at the injuries he also squinted his eyes again and lifted his goggles up so he could look at the dead man more closely to see if he had and small puncture wounds.

Talla looks around, nodding in agreement as the others spoke. She approaches the man, eyeing the wound.

"Whoever did this tried to make it look like the sphinx did it, but obviously does not know anything about a sphinx! These bite marks look more like a spider's bite, and a human size one at that. They should have stuck with the claw marks, a sphinx doesn't even bite. It has a human head, not a lion's." She pauses as she considers Rynwyrd's comment about poison. She looks over to him as she says, "If this is a real spider bite, which I suspect it is, then it could have climbed up the side of the tent or jumped away if it was the correct type of spider." She considers thoughtfully. "This might also explain the shallow tracks." She frowns and shudders. "I do not look forward to meeting a spider larger than me."

This is likely the most you have heard Talla speak since you met her.

While the rest of the party crowded around the body, Torgan seemed content to wait by the entrance to the cage with Venlok the Scourge.  As a bard, Torg considered himself more of a "people" person than a "bloated corpse" person.  Which was just as well, since Venlok didn't smell quite as bad as the dead body.

Torgan had only talked to Venlok once or twice since he signed on, and as far as Torgan was concerned, the man was a brute.  He could be friendly enough when he felt like it, but otherwise his thuggish cruelty would be perfectly at home in an orcish raiding party.  Still, no reason to be rude.  Torgan gave the guards a friendly nod, then gestured towards the party.  "They're with us."  He explained, probably unnecessarily.

To clarify, the tracks do look like those of a large cat, even if some think they are too shallow to be real.

Venlok listens in and keeps a close eye on everyone, especially when they start poking around here or there. At Rynwyrd’s question he rattles off a response.

“We checked the tent in the morning as part of general security. I remember seeing this man around a couple hours before. According to Phardaen he asked for directions specifically for the Sphinx tent. When Phardaen told him that the show wouldn’t start for awhile he seemed unfazed. While we don’t stop people from poking around between shows we do try to keep an eye on where visitors are at all times. Phardaen and one of the guards saw him heading this way but as far as anyone saw he was alone. No one else went that way from the midway. I think his murderer was already here lying in wait for him but if so, how did they know he would be here? If you want my opinion, and you should, it wasn’t planned. Rube walked in in something he shouldn’t have and got whacked.”

Torgan thought for a second. "Well, I kinda doubt our corpse and his killer wound up in the tent together by accident.  He came straight here, so he was obviously expecting to find SOMETHING.  My money's on it being a setup.  Killer talks the mark into meeting him here, kills him, then uses some kinda cat-foot-shoes to fake the tracks and blame the circus.  Only thing I don't get is the spider-bites.  Why not just knife him?  A bunch of slash wounds would be a whole lot more convincing than this."

"Or..." Torgan scratched his chin absently while he thought.  "It was some kind of cat-spider monster.  Is that a thing?  I don't really know my monsters.  And speaking of monsters..."

He looked up suddenly, his gaze turning to Rynwyrd as the thought struck him.  The elf had seemed pretty dismissive of the idea of Jherizhana teleporting or firing energy beams.  Did he know more about sphinxes than he had let on?  Might be time to shake that particular tree and see if anything falls out.

"So, Venlok," the half-orc continued casually.  "What's normally the next step?  You make sure the tent's empty, someone goes to give Jheri the all-clear, and she teleports in for the show?  Obviously she can't just walk across the fairgrounds."
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 22:36, Sun 22 July 2018.

"I'm in agreement with the setup part, it sounds like someone convinced him to come here so they could kill him and blame the sphinx. I dunno much about spiders, but I know there was weapons that can hold poison. Are you sure it was a spider and not just spider venom?"

Amara brushed herself off as she looked around carefully, sighing in frustration. She knew this wouldn't be easy but knowing who the stiff was would probably help, a lot.

Talla nods but gestures to the location of the bites. "These look like spider bites to me, so unless there is a weapon or another creature that can mimic the bites, I suspect it was a spider."

Verna took her time to dismount Garrick and took a look at the corpse. She agreed with Moggrim that poison was involved and noted to him when he mentioned it. With Garrick's reins loosely in hand she walk parallel, tapped the ground near to the mysterious footprints to have Garrick smell the footprints to see if he could make anything out of them. If Garrick started to follow the tracks, Verna would let the reins go and let him go where they took him. With Verna following him on his heels, urging him on.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:54, Tue 24 July 2018.

"So..... I think a big clue we're missing here is. Who is the corpse?"

Amara glanced at Venlok wondering if they knew yet, knowing who he was opened at least a fair bit of details and would let them better research things like who how and why. As is, a random dead body wasn't a big deal. At least until people started missing him. Actually....

"Hell, with supposed swamp wolves and a spider bite I'm surprised you don't just wait till night time and dump him on the edge of the swamp to be found."

Venlok was about to respond to Torgan when there was a commotion at the front. He held up a hand in the universal sign of "talk to you later" and left the tent. Shortly afterwards he returned accompanied by a local, albeit one who seemed quite a bit better off than the farmers and millers they had passed by earlier.

"Ah...I see. So you are the mercenaries and rat catchers assigned to look at..."

He paused and frowned as he looked down at the body. A wave of grief and surprise passes over his face.

"Oh...oh no. It's Viorec...how terrible."

He kneels down to take a closer look.

"I...I don't understand who could do this. Viorec was just a farmer. He had no enemies or problems. His house was on the outskirts of town. I don't even know why he would be at the carnival given..."

He frowned and stood up straight. His face was a stoic mask as he turned to address those that gathered. He had the practiced speaking voice of a seasoned professional.

"Greetings. I am the Mayor of Ravenmoor. My name is Andretti Kreigler. This here was Viorec Korzha, a local farmer. He has a house near the outskirts of town, chances are you passed right by it on the way here. He was a friendly sort and well-liked in town but he had been experiencing some recent tragedy that was causing him to act...off. You see his son, Ornigaard went missing last week. As much as we would like to think our community is a safe one the surrounding swamps have their fair share of dangers. Ornigaard was often being reprimanded for going where he shouldn't, most often chasing after his pet that liked to wander instead of staying close to its nest like most other stirges. When he went missing we helped search the nearby bogs for him but we couldn't find any trace of the boy. Viorec took it hard, as one would expect. He kept thinking that there was some clue or trail that could put him on his son's track but as the days passed the rest of the town shifted into mourning. Even his wife, Eliza, was grieving for her lost boy but Viorec kept at it."

He paused and considered the man and then seemed to take in his surroundings for the first time, noting the giant empty cage.

"Oh. Hmmm. So one of the carnival folk had informed me that there had been a murder but...what exactly is being housed in that giant cage and why isn't it there now?"

He began to look between the body and the cage and then noticed the paw prints leading out to the back.

"What is going on here. What killed Viorec? Forgive me but I thought Viorec had gotten into an altercation or something. They said there was an investigation but this doesn't look like he was knifed in a fight or something. This looks like an animal attack!"

He started looking around at the shadows in the dark tent with a nervous expression on his face.

"What's out there? Do I need to warn the town? Do we need to raise a militia or something?"

Verna heard only half of the mayors explanation of who the victim because Garrick had caught a scent and he was follow fast. If it weren't for Garrick stopping to see if Verna wasn't right behind her, the wolf would have shot ahead. "Hey! Garrick smells something!" she says excited to the others that were where the stakes had been pulled up. Verna intended to follow her wolf to where ever the scent took them.

Talla looked up at Verna and Garrick, startled at the sudden movement. As Verna calls out that the wolf had found something, Talla's gives a small grin. Following the wolf seemed a lot more exciting than staying and talking to the mayor. Besides, he looked like he needed a kind word and a calm voice to keep him from sending his entire town into the swamp in search of a monstrous creature set on slaughtering the town. That was not Talla.

She moved to join Verna, and hoped that Garrick would lead them on away from the dead body and nervous mayor.

OOC: Splitting into a new thread. Post there if you want to follow Verna< and her wolf

Andretti jumped as the wolf bounded past and frowned.

"I hope that thing is trained. If it attacks anyone you can be damn sure there will be a price to pay!"

But his words fell on deaf ears as the halfling and her wolf were already gone...

"I'll keep her out of trouble. You guys deal with this shitstorm. Ugh, why couldn't this happen in a forest instead of a swamp?"

Amara muttered to herself and quietly followed after the wolf, she was just as likely to insult the mayor as she was to explain things clearly. She could call a bluff and knew how to talk her way out of trouble, but she didn't know much about spiders. Nor did she fill like explaining how she knew so much about setting people up. Great way to get people not trusting you.

Torgan couldn't blame Verna for rushing out in the middle of the mayor's ceaseless prattling, or the others for following her.  A fresh scent and a possible lead were much more exciting fare than standing around while the biggest fish in the local puddle talked at you.  And wow, could this man talk.  He went from hurried to grieving to stoic to anxious, giving the dead man's full family history and asking question after question with no pause for anyone to answer.  It was almost impressive.

Half the party rushing out without warning was enough to give the blabbermouth pause for a moment, and Torgan did his best to seize the opportunity.  He held up his hands appeasingly as Mayor Andretti yelled after the wolf.  "Of course it's trained."  He replied, immediately putting on an air of calm assurance.  "We're professionals, and so is the wolf.  I'm Torgan Dul, and this is my team.  I'm happy to answer your questions as best I can, but first I need to ask one thing..."

"Did you just say "pet stirges"?  Stirges, those giant leathery mosquito things?  Stirges, nature's greatest insult to man and god?  Pet stirges?  Did I hear that right?"
This message was last edited by the player at 14:03, Thu 26 July 2018.

Ryn stood up from his crouch when Venlok left. He listened to the man, who turned out to be the mayor carefully. But even more importantly, he watched the man carefully as well. His reactions SEEMED to be genuine. He didn't seem to have any need to fake them, unless he was involved, which would be odd.

Ryn rolled his eyes at Torgan in clear view of both the half-orc and the mayor, when he tried to indicate it was his team. If they were in some place other than this backwards backwater town, he would care enough to correct the matter - and might do so in private later regardless.

"This man, Viorec you say, appears to have been killed with a poison, and someone appears to be going through a lot of effort to make it look like an animal attack. The circus has a sphinx that is usually in this cage - however, before you jump to any conclusions, I would point out that while the body appears to be mauled by claws, these bite marks here," and he indicated the bite mark in case the mayor wanted to look, "suggest something more like a spider, which is where the poison would have been injected." He finished with a small shrug. "Someone killed him and is trying to make it appear that the sphinx did so, but doing a poor job of the frame-up."
This message was last edited by the player at 20:05, Thu 26 July 2018.

"Of course, we're professionals." Karella called out before she followed the others outside. "We'll meet back here."


That would make 4 of us following the wolf. And that leaves 4 to talk to the mayor :)
This message was last edited by the player at 16:57, Thu 26 July 2018.

Andretti turned to Torgan and nodded.

"Yes that is correct. Domesticating stirges is a tradition for Ravenmoor. There are so many and they can be trained to be proper pets although we also butcher them as well. There  are quite a few local delicacies that use stirge legs."

As Rynwyrd explained the crime scene to the mayor his face darkened and he pursed his lips together.

"I see. I am not a healer nor an alchemist so I will have to trust your word on this. I appreciate being kept involved and will do everything in my power to help. Do you have any suspects yet? Do you know why Viorec was even here?"

Torgan despised stirges, as did all sensible people.  But no point insulting the local culture more than he already had.  Keeping up his assumed role as a professional investigator, he did his best to answer.  "We know he came here for a reason, though we're not entirely sure what that reason was.  He came to the carnival and immediately asked where the sphinx tent was.  Then he came here even though there wasn't a show, snuck in, and got killed.  I'd guess he was here because he thought there was some clue to his son's disappearance.  And if someone was willing to murder him over it, then I'd say that the boy didn't just wander off either.  Maybe he stumbled onto something he shouldn't have.  A smuggling stash or a drug plantation, or just the den of some monster or criminal hiding outside of town..."

The half-orc gestured towards the entrance of the tent.  "Unless anyone has anything else they'd like to do here, I'd like to take a look at Viorec's place."  With a glance at the mayor, he continued.  "You know anyone else we should be looking at?  Someone who seemed particularly annoyed that Viorec wouldn't let things go?  Or just...y'know, the shadiest fucker in town?"

The mayor gave a shrug.

"We don't have any...ahem...shady people in town. Not any that would be capable of murder, that's for sure. A couple days ago he got into an altercation with Saul Lupescu over at his store. Saul runs the local trading post and smithy and apparently refused to supply Viorec with equipment. Viorec intended to just march off into the swamp. Now Saul refused because it was obvious that Viorec wasn't thinking straight but the two came to blows. Nothing serious but it was a bit of unpleasantness that's for sure. I'm guessing you'll want to question Saul of that, he can be found at his trading post near the center of town. Listen for the sound of smithing and you'll know you found the right spot. Saul's wife and daughter both witnessed the confrontation first hand if you want more witnesses."

Rynwyrd actually smiled slightly during the mayor's talking. Biting back at the stirge's had an ironic and pleasantly vengeful tone to it that appealed to him. He might have to try one of those delicacies before they left town at some point.

He gave a nod to Torgan. "Agreed. Viorec's house, and to see the Lupescu family. I honestly doubt we will find that enough of an argument happened to justify murder, but I have been surprised before."

The mayor gives a nod and looks sadly at the body before discussing with Venlok how to make preparations to move the body for burial once the investigation is complete.

OOC: If you want to head to Viorec's house just say so. Otherwise the mayor will be available at his house for further questioning.

As the mayor turned away, Torgan gave the man a suspicious glance.  No shady people, huh?  Every group, every village, no matter how degenerate or honest, had someone who was least trustworthy.  That was just, like, math.  And if you couldn't say who that person was, it was probably you.

Or maybe Torg was just being paranoid.  Maybe the mayor was just too insulated to know who was up to what.  Although...if you're looking for a man with a secret worth killing for, it didn't hurt to start with the most successful man in town.

The half-orc led his small party out the door.  Once out of earshot of the mayor and Venlok, he glanced towards his companions.  "Hey Rynwyrd, I've been wondering something:  You're like, a hundred, right?  That's just how elves age, you're not adults until you're sixty or whatever.  Do you...were you a baby for years and years?  If I see an elf toddler, is that kid older than me? Or do you grow up at a normal rate, but then everyone treats you like a child for the next few decades?"

As he talked, Torgan cut easily through the crowd in the direction towards town.  He didn't quite know the way, but he could ask for directions once he hit the village proper.

OOC: Heading towards Viorec's house.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:40, Sun 05 Aug 2018.

Viorec's house is located right on the edge of town not far from the ferry that shuttled the party over to in the first place. On closer inspection the group can see a large bird cage made of wood that is empty near the front entrance. The house looks like overall it's been kept in good repair even though it seems oddly quiet and deserted compared to other houses around it.