"I'm not dead!" Titus interrupted Vrenna before she could even finish her question.  It continued, clearly aggrieved by the mention of necromancy.  "Or undead.  I never died.  Other people died, sure, and I'm made out of their corpses. But they weren't me!"

With visible effort, the golem tried to calm down.  "I know I'm not a real person.  I'm a thing, born from rotting meat like a maggot or a beetle.  Maybe I'm not alive.  But I'm not like those things.  I'm not.  If a wizard was controlling me or something, it wasn't a necromancer.  Because I'm not dead."

After a second, it added.  "I don't think it was the wizard at the school, either.  Crowl?  He was surprised to see me.  Surprised and afraid."

After another pause, Titus finally got around to answering Vrenna's question.  "And I don't have visitors, or friends.  I try not to let people see me."

  The interruption doesn't immediately stop Vrenna's practiced delivery, but her fascination takes over as Titus reveals far more intelligence than she had considered.  She looks more forgiving than humble at the mistake, but lets Titus finish and takes her time responding.

  "Thank you.  That will save time.  I call on the lines of rule to confess."  Vrenna waves a hand past her eyes, and they darken to something the torchlight doesn't illuminate well.  She keeps talking while she scrutinizes the construct.  "We will consult the best arcanists we can find about the problem, Titus.  I want to see you in a little cottage somewhere when this is done.  Have you ever noticed anything after waking from an episode of mindlessness that you think had to do with where you'd gone in the meantime?  I know it's a lot of questions, but we must play both attorney and detective on your behalf."
This message was last edited by the player at 04:07, Fri 26 Nov 2021.

Felix pondered at the outburst from Titus. His knowledge of a branch of magic that the magus steered clear of was a surprise. Watching, he let Vrenna conduct her investigation.

Titus nodded slightly.  The duo thought they were getting the hang of reading the expressions on it's warped face, and their small gestures of kindness were clearly having a great effect.

It considered the question. "Not...not really.  Last time it happened to me was three years ago, I think?  I was in a cave I'd been staying in, then I went away and when I came back it was night time, and I was in a different part of the swamp.  My clothes were a little torn up, I think, but otherwise I was about the same.  One time I had ink stains on my fingers.  Once I smelled like fire.  That was a long time ago, though."

OOC: Vrenna doesn't detect any current spells effecting Titus.

  Vrenna stalls and looks back and forth between Felix and Titus in confusion.  "I'm sorry, did you say this has not happened for years?  Until the episode just now when you were captured?  But these murders all took place in the past year!"

"This year?  All of them?  Oh.  Nobody really told me about the murders."  Titus clearly wasn't sure how to deal with this new information. "Well...I guess that means I didn't do it?"

A hopeful expression came over his face.  "But that's better, right?  We were going to show it wasn't my fault I hurt those people, because I was being controlled.  But if I didn't actually hurt them, then we can just say that!"  His expression faltered as he watched Vrenna's face.  "...Right?"
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:15, Thu 02 Dec 2021.

Felix had a quizzical look on his face, piecing together the new information, trying to determine of Titus was speaking the truth. "Maybe you can remember where that cave was that you stayed at?" he asked. "It might give us a place to try to verify that you had been there. The hard part is showing that you had been there for years."

21:44, Today: Felix Axcici rolled 14 using 1d20.  Sense motive.

  "An alibi won't sate the townsfolk," Vrenna replies to both of them at once.  She shakes her head and slips into frowning through the jail wall as she thinks through it.  Her tail, stiff again, sweeps a wide arc behind her.  "We certainly will tell them that, Titus.  And yes, Mister Axcici, convincing proof that the defendant was elsewhere at the time of the murders would be helpful.  But nothing will save his life like another neck in the noose.  We need to catch at least one of the real killers.  That would be enough to call a mistrial."

  The woman's eyes are dull with frustration when she raises them again.  "If I could keep Gustav from opening his mouth in court, I might be able to work with just an alibi.  But with that clown on the floor?  We need a killer.  Now that the crowd has its furor high, there will be a conviction.  That is the inevitable subtext of this job: we are to change whose.  When we are finished here, I think it is high time someone spoke with Croyl."
This message was last edited by the player at 19:11, Thu 02 Dec 2021.

Vrenna's venting about the frustration of working with an incompetent like Gustave Kaple drew a sharp burst of cruel laughter from Acting Sergeant Dun, who had been watching over the conversation from the desk in the corner.  Over by the door, Kaple himself turned bright red and stared down at his feet in shame.

Meanwhile, Titus considered Felix's question.  "I don't stay in one place too long.  There's some caves and ruins in the deep swamp that I go to be away from people.  But..."  The giant creature hesitated, guilty about what it was about to admit.  "But I get bored, and I get lonely, and sometimes I go somewhere to be closer to people.  I stopped trying to talk to them, but I like being where I can see them.  Sometimes I set up a lean-to across the lake from some village, or find a ruined building just off of a road, so I can watch people go about their day."

"You don't have to tell me it's stupid.  I know it's stupid.  Someone always finds me sooner or later.  Usually they just run away, and I go live somewhere else before anyone else shows up.  Sometimes, they're friendly, especially the children.  They're too innocent to judge." A trace of a smile passed over the flesh golem's twisted face, then disappeared. "But even then it's not long until someone else finds out, or something else happens, and I have to leave.  When people do try to hurt me...well, I'm pretty fast and I don't get tired like people do, so I can usually just run away.  Usually."  Titus stopped, then shot a glance to the guard watching in the corner.  It seemed to regret raising the question of what happened to any pursuers it couldn't just outrun.

Clearly hoping nobody followed up on that point, the golem continued.  "I could find those places again, if I was out in the swamp.  But I don't know if I could give directions.  I don't even know what most of the villages are called."

  Vrenna grimaces, and even her ashen cheeks color a bit.  She sighs and carefully attempts repairs.  "Gustav.  I will try to make it up to you after the trial.  Meanwhile, I do find family and inheritance law completely mind-numbing.  Enough so I would expect to miss details, and so I would send such a client on to a better, more careful solicitor."  She lets that admission hang in the air for a long few seconds before turning back to the prisoner.

  "Thank you, Titus.  There is little chance of you being released to give us a tour, but if you happen to know the names of any villages you were in over the past year, it may be a useful place for our investigators to focus, perhaps to prove you could not be where the crimes were committed.  Particularly important times are late second harvest of last year, around last frost of this year, and around this past summer solstice.  Anything?"

"Just in case, may we see the bottom of your footwear so we can take come measurements? If we find a cave near the scene and the footprints do not match, then we might be able to rule you out." Felix asked.

Acting Sergeant Dun spoke up, gesturing to a locker in the corner. "He had some big iron-shod boots on when we caught him."  After a moment, the burly guard got to his feet and unlocked the locker with one of his many keys.  Inside were bulky clothes, a pair of enormous boots, and a book of Taldan poetry.  The clothes had clearly been sewn together from multiple sets of normal-sized clothes, and the boots were home-made out of thick leather and iron nails.  With boots like these, Felix could expect Titus' footprints to be quite distinctive.  The book of poetry had clearly seen better days, and held the mildewey smell of paper that had spent too much time near musty swamp water.

Titus thought over Vrenna's question for a moment.  "Like I said, I don't really know the names.  There was one village, across the lake from where I was staying.  I think it was called Herdstag?  At least that's what Ellsa said..."  Titus trailed off after mentioning the name Ellsa, as if struck by some sort of realization.  It's stitched-together face took on an unreadable expression.

"...What are they saying I did in Herdstag?"  It asked quietly.

  Vrenna does not immediately respond, but her stricken look suggests the answer.  After a couple of deep breaths, she gets her composure settled again and, with a sympathetic grimace, explains.  "Elisa is dead.  The witnesses say her body was carried back into town by a giant made of collected body parts, who was laughing uproariously.  I assume we have an impostor...?"

"No."

The Beast was silent for a moment, before it's face tightened strangely, pulling back into a twisted rictus grin.  Shuddering in it's chair, the golem threw it's head back.  "Hhhhhhha!  Haaaaaaa!  Hhha!"

For a moment, Vrenna and Felix think Titus is laughing, they quickly realize that it's something else:  With no functioning tear ducts and a face pulled tight with wire stitches, this is what a crying flesh golem looks like.

"I might as well have killed her!" Titus howled between it's shuddering cries.  "For all the help I was!  What good is this strength if I can't even save people from ONE LITTLE ghost!"  The chains binding it to the chair creaked dangerously under Titus' thrashing, causing Dun to straighten up and put a hand on the halberd beside him.

Looking at the halberd, and the dull grey adamantium of it's blade, Titus nodded in agreement.  "You might as well kill me!  I'm useless!  All those kids are dead because I'm useless!  I couldn't save them, I couldn't fight the ghost, I couldn't even warn the others about it, because I'm USELESS!"

"Titus, you might not have saved them at the time but it might help us understand what happened. Why not start from what you remember, like the ghost. What can you tell us about it?" Felix asked as he pondered if a ghost could possess a construct.


22:12, Today: Boris rolled 18 using 1d20+9.  K: Arcana.

22:11, Today: Boris rolled 12 using 1d20+5.  K religion.

  Vrenna's expression cycles rapidly from alarmed to sympathetic to stern, where it seems to pull her to her feet. "All-sire grant me patience," she prays with a tight grip on her medallion that matches the tightness in her voice.  "Titus!  Grief is a powerful thing, and she meant a great deal to you.  But she will not be the last!  If!  If–you do not help us find the killer.  Do you want to be useful?  This is how!  Right now, this is a use; do not pass it by in your misery.  You can save lives now.  Answer Felix's question."

Titus flinched slightly at Vrenna's chiding, and the huge golem lowered it's head in shame.  "Sorry.  I'm sorry.  I'll...start at the beginning."

"I found Ellsa wandering around near my hut one day.  She didn't see me at first, but it's too dangerous for a little girl to go wandering alone in the woods like that.  I thought if I showed myself, she'd...I dunno, run home and learn a lesson about wandering off?"

Titus smiled (probably), it's voice wistful.  "But she didn't run away when she saw me.  She just waved and said hello, like I was anyone else.  So I said hello back, and just like that, we were friends.  I stayed near her village for longer than I usually do, and every so often she would come out to see me.  We'd talk, she'd lend me books, I'd tell her stories.  It... it was nice."

"But then one night, while I was looking over the lake at her village, I saw her wandering around alone again, carrying a lantern.  Except she wasn't alone.  There was this...this dark shadowy shape walking with her.  I don't know what it was, but it looked undead."  Once again, the golem's voice took on a tone of disgust and hatred at the mention of the undead.  "I guess that's my fault, too.  I taught her the exact opposite of what I meant to when I showed myself.  I made her think it was okay to go wandering off alone, and to trust strange creatures like me.  And so she followed that thing away from her home, and into a hidden cave in the nearby hill."

"By the time I got there, the ghost had already killed her.  It just...sucked the life right out of her.  And out of her body..."  Titus' voice broke again, clearly on the edge of another breakdown.

"Out of her body came another dark shadow.  In the shape of a little girl."

OOC: From the description, it's hard to say what the "ghost" was.  There are several different types of incorporeal undead that create spawn from their victims.  Both Vrenna and Felix can imagine that a fight between one of these spirits and a golem would go nowhere, with neither one able to hurt the other.

  "You brought her back to them, what was left of her," Vrenna follows up, the iron gone from her voice now.  She steps up to the bars and places a hand around one.  "And you did it knowing what people think of you.  That's noble, so of course the weak want to punish you for it.  Can you give us anything that would help us find this cave?  The spectral pests may still be using it, and I am eager to have a lead on an actual killer."
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 21:14, Thu 23 Dec 2021.

Felix scratched his chin for a moment. "Did you hear her speaking to the spirit? If so did she mention its name? As for the cave, could you describe the area so I could map it out?" he asked Titus, pulling out an ink and pen from his haversack.

The chained giant nodded slowly, struggling to keep it's composure.  "She said it's name.  Or...whatever it turned her into did.  She called it Brother Swarm."

After a moment, Titus continued.  "The cave goes into the hill by the village.  You'll know the one I'm talking about.  It's hard to spot from a distance, but there was a scarecrow near the entrance."

  "We have colleagues in the village now.  If they do not come across this cave, I'll go out myself, tonight.  Better hunting for shadows after dark, anyway."  With a deep breath, Vrenna dials back the fervor and takes a step away from the bars.  Then she nods to herself and straightens her robes, beginning the little rituals of departure.

  "Well.  I need to collect quite a few more statements, as soon as possible. I will be back early tomorrow with an update on our progress and what to expect at court.  The three days of testimony and argument will happen even if we can prove what you say about the children, so conserve your hope.  It has to last.  Is there anything you want me to know that we haven't talked about yet?"

"Or are there any questions that you think we should have asked you?" Felix asked, giving Titus a chance to provide any additional input.

After thinking it over for a moment, Titus shook it's head.

If the two investigators didn't have any further questions, they were escorted out of the dungeon by Acting Sergeant Dun.  Out on the courthouse steps, and once again in the light of day, Gustave Kaple moved to shake their hands.

"Good luck."  He said with a nod, before awkwardly adding:  "And...l-look, I'll do my best to let your people do as much of the t-talking as possible.  Come trial day, I'll put you on the stand and I'll just... I'll ask open-ended questions.  Alright?"

"You might want to get a cot in your office for the next few days. Rather than trying to locate you once we return, we will head here to let you know what happened during our investigation." Felix suggested, finding it hard to believe that he is the more diplomatic of the two before departing the jail.

"What is the next stop, Dr Crowl?" he asked Vrenna once outside.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:27, Tue 28 Dec 2021.

  "Gustav, I didn—"  But Vrenna stops, sensing a lost cause.  It deflates her some, and she nods slowly in acceptance.  "I was rude, thinking in the most adversarial terms.  I really would recommend your thoroughness. But oh—I have to catch up to Felix.  Good bye."

  "Yes, I think so," she said to the other tiefling, catching up and continuing ahead in the same stride.  "There is still the mystery of our friend's absent-mindedness, and I don't want any surprises from that corner.  Croyl is the last one to see him during that state, however briefly."