Elyra looks at the retreating dog in annoyance, not wanting to leave the gate yet. "Who was watching the gate tonight?" She asks, her voice cold with barely concealed rage.
The guardsman is taken aback by her intensity, which draws her in, stepping up to him, her eyes slightly crazed. "Who was it?" She repeats. "Someone let those monsters walk through those gates! Who was it!?" Her voice rises in outrage as she stares at the hapless guardsman.
"Woulda been Tom Maggard," Ernie says with a frown then steps backward away from Elyra with his hands up to put some distance between himself and the heated exchange. "Tom Maggard, right Ben?" Ernie calls with a look to Big Ben, who stands beside Talashia a few feet distant. Ben looks confused a moment but nods in the affirmative.
Sandstone takes off in a loping run with a light bark, heading eastward. Please post whether your PC follows after the dog or remains at the Gate.
Tac looks back and forth between the guards and his seething cousin. His mouth moves, but no sound comes out for a moment.
When Sandstone barks, the young engineer jumps, then quickly says, "I'll go check on the dog, then. You'll call out if you need me?" He quickly heads off to follow Sandstone, exiting the tense situation, though when he notes his canine companion has apparently gone off into a graveyard--a graveyard now covered in thick, atmospherically spooky fog--Tac gulps, though he does stick to his path, looking to find out what the dog's managed to sniff out this time.
Talashia looks off after the dog and its followers, then approaches Elyra.
"So whoever was on duty left the gate open, and that's how they got in," she says, glaring at the barred gate accusingly. "They could have been out there for who knows how long, biding their time..."
She sighs. "Even so, maybe we should check to see what that dog smells. It seems to have a nose for trouble."
She sighs. "Even so, maybe we should check to see what that dog smells. It seems to have a nose for trouble."
"You don't understand," Objects Elyra testily. "The tracks say someone left after the goblins came in -- Not a goblin, someone with boots. I think they betrayed the town and left..." She breaks off, unable to piece out why.
"Hellfire," she mutters, looking at their retreating comrades. "Fine, let's follow the dog."
With the threat of fisticuffs evidently passing as Elyra and the others march off east to the boneyard, Ernie recovers his courage and kicks the dirt--destroying more tracks. "You lot ain't the guard! Goin' 'round, accusin' at town officials, yer goin' ter regret that. I'll see ter it meself... " Ernie mutters the last in a low tone, but Talashia, Elyra, Tac, and Sivan all overhear him anyway. Ben shuffles over to the Gate to test the worth of the wooden bar by tugging on the both the bar and pushing against the gate doors. Satisfied, Ben turns around and--smiling-waves at Talashia.
Filtering through the fog that lilts between the gravestones littering the boneyard, the group doesn't at first see Sandstone so it takes some minutes to find where the dog's gone off to. At the far eastern end of the graveyard, however, Elyra is the first to spot the rough collie standing beside a bare stretch of the boneyard's northern wall. Gazing up past the line of Sandstone's pointing snout, sharp-eyed observers can make out the top of a ladder propped up against the wall's opposite side. Not far off is a freshly dug-up grave with the contents missing. The empty grave's headstone reads:
HERE LIES Father Ezekiel Tobyn
In memorium of a life given to service
"Did the goblins do this?" he says, clearly appalled. He glances to his cousin, clearly more expert on the creatures than he, and remembers she's new to town.
"This ... this was the town priest before the church burned down. With him in it."
"This ... this was the town priest before the church burned down. With him in it."
Elyra looks grimly into the black pit, obviously disturbed by the news. "I don't know," She comments. "But I don't think the goblins did it. Someone let the goblins into town, through the main gate, and then left after the goblins were in. And the goblins were carrying gold -- I can't see them stooping to grave-robbing with that much coin in their purses." She frowns. "Maybe they let the goblins in to distract the town so they could dig. But who would want to disturb the Father's grave?"
After pointing out the ladder at the wall, Sandstone circles near to the open grave and sits down a pace or two behind those who'd followed him into the mist shrouded cemetery. With his ears hanging down glumly, the rough collie issues a low canine whimper.
"If someone let the goblins in, then who needed that ladder?" Tac wonders aloud. He shakes his head. "We should probably knock that out of the way before we do anything else. The gate's closed now, but if there's more gobbers and they find that, even if they didn't set it, we'll have a hell of a bad night. Anyone want to give me a hand up there?"
"We should probably knock that out of the way before we do anything else. The gate's closed now, but if there's more gobbers and they find that, even if they didn't set it, we'll have a hell of a bad night. Anyone want to give me a hand up there?"[/color]
"Wait a minute," Warns Elyra, placing a hand on her cousin's shoulder to stop him from approaching the ladder. "Everyone, hold still a minute. Let me see what I can figure out." She examines the earth at the base of the wall below the ladder, then backtracks toward the grave, trying to see if she can learn anything from the tracks.
OOC: Survival +7 to see other people, +9 to see Goblins. She is trying to find out who, if anyone, came over the wall. Also, were there any goblins near the gravesite? If she sees an easy way to do it, she will try to get a look at somewhere she saw Sandstone step, just to see what his prints look like.
Sivan looks around. He neither knows the 'owner' of this grave, nor can he track. But If the others find out more, his combat abilities will be surely needed.
__________________
Signature
Hi I'm a comic and rpg nerd. Don't hurt me, please.
While Elyra hunts for prints, everyone stands in place per her request. Despite the shrouding fog and the deep of night, heavy dragging marks from graveside to the base of the wall are seen by everyone as evidence that someone has dug up and removed a body from Father Tobyn's grave.
Elyra
Survival 21 for tracks other than goblins. Survival 24 for goblin tracks. The lack of light, combined with the fog, makes it much more difficult to track, however. If better lighting were available, more information could be revealed by the tracks.Elyra treks gingerly but quickly around the base of the wall where the ladder lies propped against the outer edge and quickly finds the tracks of five separate goblins, along with scrapes on the stone wall where metal implements heavily rubbed against the inside of the rock wall where the creatures must have climbed down.
When Talashia sees how hard Elyra has to work to see the tracks and evidence, she holds her hands close, palms facing each other. Licks of blue-white light arc from her fingers and palms into a little ball between her hands. As she spreads her hands wide the ball of light spins out, breaking up into several smaller balls that whirl around the wall where the ladder is...casting eerie silver-blue light that's about as bright as a torch over the area.
The light shone by Talashia is a help to Elyra, who finds it much easier to determine a fuller story as told by the tracks.
Elyra
One deeply impinted set of prints at the base of the rock wall surrounding the boneyard indicates that at least one of the goblins jumped down to the ground from the top of the wall, while the others climbed down. Elyra hunts carefully and determines that a lone pair of lightly shod feet--not in work boots as at the North Gate, but in leather shoes or boots, perhaps--may have been first down off the wall...the depth of the imprint of these tracks indicate that the tracks belong to an individual a great deal heavier than the average goblin (a human or perhaps a half-elf, perhaps). In any case, the lightly shod tracks are overlaid by the five goblins, which is clear enough that they were made first.
Elyra spends a few minutes more following the goblin tracks in a meandering fashion--the tracks start to wander 'round the graveyard but eventually all return to Father Tobyn's gravesite, and there it is clear that digging with shovels was done. The lightly shod feet stand in place at a distance with a vantage of approaches to the boneyard from the west and the north.
Sandstone quickly stands and begins wagging his long tail enthusiastically as the silver haired woman's eldritch globes of light coalesce and flit along the Boneyard wall. The curious collie is clearly enthralled by the magical display as he follows the lights' gyrations with his wedge-shaped head.
Elyra gives the eldritch lights a wary eye as she goes about her business, knowing they are useful but distrusting them all the same. In the end, she straightens and gestures to her surroundings as she speaks.
"They came in over the wall," she says, indicating the ladder. "I make it five goblins and someone else -- A human, maybe, or a half-elf. Not the same one who left through the gate, they were wearing wearing heavier boots than the one who was here. They wandered all over, but they all came to this grave. They were looking for this one in particular, I think," she adds. "The big one was the leader, it looks like he stood watch while the goblins dug."
She grits her teeth. "The person who led the digging may still be in town, but there's no way to find him. Or her. Or whatever. I don't know if I can track whoever left, either, it's not going to be easy."
Elyra looks at the group. "Can anyone make some sense out of this?"
If she sees an easy way to do it, she will try to get a look at somewhere she saw Sandstone step, just to see what his prints look like.
There are two sets of canine paw prints criss-crossing the boneyard in haphazard fashion that approach in seeming tandom from the west near the festival square in front of the Temple and--after sniffing Father Tobyn's gravesite--meander north. One of the two of these sets of tracks dances round and round--sniffing something of interest, no doubt--in Sandstone's current position. When Elyra examines what she feels is certain to be a print that surely must have been left by Sandstone, however, the print she finds is three-toed with a fourth dewar claw that leaves a telltale light prick of an imprint in the earth...a distinctly uncanine print.
Sandstone, ever aware of his surroundings, notes the last bent of Elyra's tracking effort to discern the nature of his own print.
In other words, she's on to you and you're on to her.
Linear Mode
And yet another word from our sponsors
