The Trial
7/15/368 O.L.G., 8:04 p.m., the jail of a small town in the Brown Hills
“Do you smell something?”
Our heroes are in their cell, sitting despondently. Several are asleep, but they rouse themselves as Martini speaks. “What?” croaks Sandy.
“Smoke,” Timothy mumbles, staring vacantly ahead. “I smell smoke.”
For a moment nobody speaks as everyone takes a deep breath, scenting the air. Several eyes grow wide. “Uh oh,” whines Federico.
Then they’re yelling for the deputies, and the next thing they know the fire is licking outside the window. Outside Lita starts shouting, trying to attract attention and get her friends out. “Fire!” she cries. “The jail’s on fire!” The next hour is a blur; there’s general pandemonium as the halflings sit, trapped, in the burning building, screaming for help as the flames spread; then suddenly one of the deputies, named Barny, arrives, smashing through a burning door and freeing the halflings at the cost of severe burns; and then another deputy arrives, and the two escort our heroes from their cell, but a burning beam collapses, smashing Deputy Barny across the neck and killing him. When the halfling band is shakily reassembled, the sheriff reluctantly allows them to stay at the inn down the street on Lita’s parole (her noblewoman disguise continues to suit the group well).
Most of the townsfolk awoke to help aid in the fight against the fire. Somberly, they now return to their beds, but an edifice of their town is gone. What started the fire? Nobody’s sure, but the halfling noblewoman claims to have seen someone performing arson, and claims loudly that someone is out to get her friends.
The chaos of the night at last fades at last as our heroes fall into a deep, exhausted slumber. When the dawn’s light trickles through the windows of their rooms, our heroes rise unhappily and prepare to go to trial. The hours of morning tick by as the halflings eat a sturdy, filling breakfast and discuss their legal strategy. Unfortunately, none of them are lawyers, and so they have only the most cursory ability to mount an effective defense. “We’ll just have to hope the truth will serve us,” comments Federico, his tail between his legs in fright.
And then the deputies, still soot-covered and angry over their loss in the night, arrive to escort our heroes none to gently to the court house.
They find Lita already there, sitting with her lawyer; when they move to sit next to her, he intervenes, insisting that they be in their own section so as not to harm his chances of getting Lita acquitted. More and more, Martini thinks this gnome attorney is going to throw them to the wolves.
The judge, despite the sheriff’s claims of bringing them to halfling justice, is a human. Sandy finds his stomach dropping when he realizes that things are even worse than he’d feared.*
The charges are read. Our heroes are accused on disrupting government property, releasing a bunch of asylum inmates on the populace, kidnapping, obstructing justice and cold-blooded murder. To their dismay, our heroes recognize two of the asylum’s orderlies sitting in the crowd- no doubt awaiting their chance to drive the nails into the halflings’ coffin, so to speak. Morgle, Lita’s gnomish attorney, watches our heroes attentively from his seat.
The prosecutor is a weasely-looking elf named Kelaryng. He’s got a half-tousled look to him, with actual stubble on his chin (highly unusual in the normally fresh-faced elves); perhaps there is a touch of human blood in his ancestry. He is constantly whispering in to the judge throughout the trial, whenever it is not his turn to present arguments to the court. Our heroes instantly dislike him, and with good reason.
Judge Lunder bangs his gavel, calls the court to order, and bids Kelaryng present his case. The elf immediately starts off by calling the halflings a bewildering number of names that mean bad guy, villain and murderer. “They callously unleashed forty madmen on Strogass, not caring whether they would harm others or themselves,” he asserts. “They murdered a doctor trying to protect his patients, and several orderlies just following orders,” he tells the judge. He paints a picture of our heroes as truly villainous. He points out just how suspicious the jail’s burning was. The judge studies him as he speaks but maintains silence.
For his first witness, the prosecutor calls Orderly Gorn, and asks him to describe the events in question, and he tells of the party’s arrival at the Asylum for Advanced Mental Treatment, Federico’s show, and the party’s subsequent freeing of all the inmates.
“Are any of the freed inmates dangerous?” asks Kelaryng.
“Oh, yes,” answers Gorn. “The infamous mass murderer Manson, for one.”
Gorn also points out Timothy as an escaped or kidnapped inmate. The lad starts rocking in his chair, though Sandy places a hand on his shoulder and murmurs reassurances to him.
The party has a chance to cross-examine Gorn after Kelaryng is done with him, and they establish nothing good. He claims not to have seen the body of Dr. Zimmer.
The next orderly called, Orderly Brown, was with Dr. Zimmer when he was killed. He also points out Timothy as an escaped inmate, and firmly states that the doctor was murdered by a group of halflings and a kobold including our heroes.
Federico cross-examines him, establishing that Dr. Zimmer changed into a nonhuman, grey-skinned creature upon his decapitation.
Then Kelaryng calls each of our heroes to the stand, one at a time, and questions them ruthlessly about their part in events. Federico tells the court everything that happened. He claims that Dr. Zimmer had been replaced by a doppelganger, but must admit that he’s never seen a doppelganger. He asks the judge if they can send for the head as evidence, but the judge declines, given the costs involved in delaying a judge (retrieving the head would take a few weeks).** The kobold tells the court all about the “horrible” asylum, describing the frightening techniques practiced on victims there (trepanation, trepaniering, etc). Kelaryng forces him to admit that he’s not a doctor and is therefore ignorant of the propriety of such things; and after all, it’s the Asylum of
Advanced Mental Treatment for a reason, isn’t it? Federico, when asked why they were really there, says, “We were there to rescue one of our friends who was being held there unjustly against his will.”
This gives the attorney a whole new line of questioning to pursue. Who is this friend? Norman. And where is he now? Federico doesn’t know. Well, why was he in the asylum? Again, the kobold has no answer. Well, what does he do? Uncomfortable uncertainty is the answer. Hm, and when did you first meet him? In the asylum itself, eh? Not much of an old friend, is he?
“Well, he’s actually Sandy’s friend, but Sandy’s my friend and I trust him!”
“This is ridiculous!” cries Martini, jumping to his feet. “This isn’t justice! That asylum was-“
Judge Lunder’s gavel falls like thunder. “Quiet!” he thunders. “You may be called to testify, but wait your turn! Such outbursts are unacceptable.”
Grumbling, Martini sits back down and Federico is released from the stand.
Sandy claims total ignorance of all the events. “I was sick at the time,” he says. “I had a terrible disease called the buzzing bowels.”
“But this ‘Norman’ is your friend?”
“More a friend of a friend,” Sandy hedges.
It is established that Sandy’s ‘patron’ had asked him to free Norman. Was either Sandy or his patron a doctor? No. Interesting, Kelaryng comments dryly, and starts drawing a picture of Sandy as the group’s ringleader.
Lita is called to the stand. “I wasn’t even there,” she protests. She tells of meeting the group while lost in the mountains, and then becoming terribly ill with the buzzing bowels. The next thing she really remembers is the monastery, long after the Asylum for Advanced Mental Treatment had been left behind. No, she didn’t know Norman; she never even consciously met him. No, she didn’t really even know the party at the time of the events in question.
“I don’t even know why you’re on trial with the others,” Judge Lunder says unhappily. “The charges against you are dismissed. You are free to go.”
She is allowed to step down, but she remains in the audience near her friends. Morgle shakes her hand and murmurs congratulations.
The trial takes an hour for lunch, then resumes. Then the elf calls Timothy to the stand. Martini leaps to his feet and protests loudly, but again the gavel comes down and the judge demands that he sit down and shut up. Timothy’s arrival on the stand causes no small consternation to the group, as Kelaryng easily establishes that he in crazy as a loon and an escaped inmate. That Timothy’s fate is sealed seems clear enough, although on cross Timothy gets to describe how Dr. Zimmer had changes substantially a few months before the events in question.
Next Kelaryng gets to Martini, who snarls angrily at the lawyer. The Judge frowns, obviously not especially pleased with the halfling ranger. Here Kelaryng establishes that none our heroes (that are present) did in fact kill the doctor and at least two inmates.
“Who did?” demands Kelaryng.
“Jawbreaker,” Martini snaps back. “And the sheriff
let him go. Where’s the justice in that? Why are we-“
“Stick to answering the questions, please,” Kelaryng interrupts smoothly.
The damning thing that Martini is forced to admit is that the party cut down the orderlies when they weren’t even armed- or rather, they were armed with nonlethal weapons, saps.
The day has slipped by. It is now early evening. The trial winds down with closing statements, and then Judge Lunder announces that he will retire to his chambers to make his decisions. Tension runs through the courtroom as the judge leaves.
“Good luck,” Lita mutters to her friends.
*Interestingly enough, the reason there was a human judge was that Lita had made several attempts to meet the original judge, and eventually word got out that said judge might have been tampered with. Alas for our heroes!
**10,000 gp per day fees are assessed.
Next Time: The Decision!
